Minion Mistress
by Grand Moff Maraxus
Summary: Read of how a young woman goes from death's embrace to rise through the ranks of the Overlord's empire. Witness her journey to discover her place in the world that condems magic. This is the story of Jinx, the Minion Mistress. Spoilers from the second game included.
1. Death's Fishing Net

**Overlord is not claimed by the author. The OC is Jinx and belongs to Sunjino. Sunjinjo is the author, creator and mastermind behind the entire story. I am merly the humble publisher. If you wish to find Sunjinjo then check Deviantart for their profile. Enjoy.**

**Prologue - Death´s fishing net**  
>The wild water swept her along. It foamed like the maw of a rabid wolf and it pushed her down with a furious force if she tried to gasp for breath. The darkness didn´t improve matters either.<p>

The underground river was just as ferocious as they´d said. And it seemed like the rocks were getting sharper. She didn´t dare guess how deep below the earth's surface she already was. The water was freezing and the strength to claw herself up rapidly disappeared from her body. She hit the rocks with her shoulder, her head, her hands trailed along a rough surface and the pain immediately got drowned by the cold… Then her leg hit a protruding spike of underwater rock and she felt something snapping. This pain couldn´t be drowned. She wanted to scream, but held back just in time – if she opened her mouth now, the water would ram in with the power of a starving armored sand worm tracing the smell of blood. She didn´t have much hope, but she´d rather bear the agony than drown.

Then, without warning, the seething ceiling of water opened in an explosion of foam and flung her away, almost incensed, as if the river had spat her out. For a split second, she had a clear view of her surroundings. Not that it pleased her.

There was a light at the end of the tunnel. Because the tunnel was on fire. Quite literally.

Far ahead of her, multiple lava flows gleamed in the darkness. She´d descended that far! But apparently, she was able to go deeper still…  
>Below her was a waterfall, and she was about to follow its course.<p>

She opened her mouth to finally scream, but before she had a chance she was already falling, amongst white foam, black water and even darker rocky spikes. Her shoulders and back grazed some of them, but she miraculously wasn´t injured any further. Then, with an enormous splash she could hear even above the roar of the water, she was back in the more or less horizontal river.

And hung there.

Dazed, numb with the cold, painfully aware of her broken leg, tired beyond belief and scared out of her wits she looked about her. The icy water kept beating her with full force, roaring as if screaming in rage of a lost prey, but it flowed past her through the stitches in a…

…Net? Here, at this depth? She was nearly in the heart of the world…  
>She made out a voice above the noise of the river. It seemed to float above the other sounds, because she could hear it quite clearly.<p>

"So what is caught, hmm?"

A dark form appeared, silhouetted on top of the river´s high and rocky shore. A short, stooped form with a long stick at his side… a scythe…  
>And, convinced Death had caught her in his fishing net to collect her soul, she finally, blissfully lost consciousness.<p>

**Please review. All reviews will be passed to the true author so be nice**


	2. The Netherworld

The author does not claim Overlord, merely their OC. I do not claim this story it belongs to Sunjino who can be found on Deviantart.

**Chapter 1 – The Netherworld**

There was a hazy image. It wasn´t exactly clear what it was, and neither was the fact who did the perceiving. There was mainly pain. After that, there was mainly darkness. That was quite an improvement, to be honest.

When there was a hazy image for the second time, things had slightly improved. This time some more information made it through, such as the little yellow lights all over the image.

There also seemed to be joyful sounds. And there seemed to be a dark form, approaching her through the yellow lights. The voice didn´t seem. The voice was there, loud and clear, even if it sounded like it came from underwater – muffled and gurgling in a strange way. 

"I see it´s awake," the voice spoke with a quite depressed tone. 

"Not it! Her!" sounded another, far more cheerful voice. This voice was similar to the watery voice. "Is female. Like Mistresses!" 

"But this no Mistress," a second cheery voice chittered. "This more like trash rats… tangly and fluffy and wet." 

"But this one not wet from blood." 

"No, this one wet from water." Several voices giggled with this. 

"Then we call her Trashrat Mistress!" New giggling. But it stopped when another voice came into the conversation. 

"No. You´ll call her Jinx." 

Jinx sat up and, not sure if she should be angry or not, wiped her short black hair from her eyes. It was still wet, so she couldn't be out of the water for long. 

Now she could see she was surrounded by several small creatures with brown skin, large bat-like ears and equally large, glowing yellow eyes. Some distance away was another one, with a rubbery bluish skin and webbed ears. He wore a dark, hooded cloak and held a large scythe. She recognized the silhouette she'd seen on top of the rocks. 

"You're the one who fished me from the river!" 

"Yes, Mortis did!" one of the brown creatures chittered. "He did good job. Now we bring her to Gnarl, yes?" 

Jinx quickly looked about her. "Gnarl? What? Err… come to think of it, what are you, exactly?" 

But it was useless. Before she could even think of getting to her feet, the creatures had gotten hold of her. They were far stronger than they looked and before long they had hauled her, struggling and all, onto their shoulders. They carried her along a rocky trail, which after a while revealed itself to lead to the edge of a gigantic chasm. Jinx stretched her neck and saw, over the shoulders of the creature in front of her, that the abyss was miles deep, if it had a bottom at all. They were in a cave, large enough to house hundreds of even the mightiest palaces of the Glorious Empire. 

There seemed to be at least one palace housed here, but not in the traditional way. In the middle of the vast void a stalactite jabbed down. Jinx estimated its length to be around two kilometres. The humongous protruding rock was surrounded by an aura of light streaming from thousands of tiny, pinprick-like windows and a larger gate halfway down its length. Hundreds of streams of molten lava flowed down over the outside, into the heart of the world. 

Someone lived in that stalactite. And it was quite obvious that someone wielded a lot of power. 

Gradually her view had become clearer and the haziness had passed. She could now see that the creatures holding her were clad in various pieces of armour and other clothes, all the way from helmets seemingly belonging to Empire soldiers to ragged tuque hats. There was even one with an ancient withered brown pumpkin with eye-holes on his head. 

She began to recognize these creatures. She'd heard descriptions of them, long ago. She couldn't remember so well at the moment, but she would... 

More importantly, they were still carrying her to the abyss. She continued her struggle. "You were going to bring me to someone! Don't throw me in there!" 

One of them looked back at her, his sharp but small teeth bared in a cheerful grin. "No worries, Jinxie! Not yet, that is." 

"Not 'fore Gnarl makes decision," another spoke up. 

"Oh, that's really great," Jinx sighed. The abyss kept coming closer. Eventually the horde marched up a last steep flight of stairs to a plateau surrounded by sharp rocks, looking out over the upside-down tower and the entire void. It wasn't until then that Jinx noticed the floating rock. 

It was round, with a flat top and a diameter of several meters. A few rough stalactites made up the bottom. It swayed slightly, like a docked boat, and it was undeniably floating. Jinx stared at it. "Magic," she whispered. 

"Oh yes," the creature wearing the pumpkin grinned. "What else?" 

She realized something else. "Is that the same thing that healed my leg?" 

"No. Was just Mortis." 

"Oh."

Once aboard the floating rock, the strange vehicle departed immediately. It held a swaggering course, more or less in the direction of the tower. Jinx was still in the grip of the brown creatures. So she couldn't peer over the edge to see how deep the gorge exactly was, but she wasn't too sure if she wanted to know at all. Eventually, after a short eternity of swaggering and swaying above a certain death, the rock slowed and stopped at the edge of a protruding platform jutting from the tower, close to the large gate she'd seen earlier. 

While they carried her onto the platform and through the gigantic gate into the tower, Jinx didn't know where to look. On both sides of her there were three pairs of armoured creatures, looking considerably neater than the ones holding her. Further on, an immense blue glow shone on the high ceiling, surrounded by ragged red banners. Jinx noticed she wasn't afraid at all. This seemed more like a distant memory than a threat. And... 

"They call you Minions, isn't it? I remember the tales of Lord Vessperion. Murdering and looting across the Old Lands with you at his side..." 

The creatures visibly righted their backs. The one wearing the tuque hat looked back at her, a wide grin plastered across his face. "You remember well! But quiet now. This is throne room." 

Jinx looked up. They were directly beneath the blue light on the ceiling now, and she could see it flowed from a slowly revolving crown of black stone spikes. It seemed to be some sort of magical portal. Straight ahead of them was a large throne, draped in blood-red cushions and surrounded by two broad lava flows slowly dripping to the floor. The effect was impressive. But the throne was empty. 

There was, though, a figure sitting on the flight of stairs leading towards it. He was intently looking at the floor. Jinx followed his gaze. There, beneath the portal, was an opening in the floor where images were being projected in a pool of hazy mist. 

The Minions put her down. Jinx didn't know why, but she didn't feel the need to run away. 

The figure studying the images raised his head. He was a Minion too, but he had a grey skin and wore a rough cloak over his hunched body. Above his arched back hung a glowing rock on a stick. 

The front Minion saluted briefly. "Greet, Gnarl. Mortis fished her from river. What to do with her?" 

The old Minion, Gnarl, looked at her for a moment. Jinx was shocked at the intensity of his gaze. He seemed to X-ray her in five seconds, and give her the additional feeling he'd seen similar things thousands of times before. This was one Minion with experience. 

"I've got no idea how you managed to survive the river, human," he spoke, "but you won't survive much longer." He addressed the brown Minions with an amused smile. "Get rid of her and save the entrails for Quaver. Maybe he'll stop annoying me if he can make that harp of his." 

The brown Minion nodded and turned to face Jinx. He wasn't grinning that wide anymore.

With her slowly returning memories of what she knew about the Minions, that seemed strange, because although she knew little of them she did know they loved murder. She managed to stop the quivering of her lips long enough to utter a question. "Why is the throne empty, Gnarl?" 

The elder Minion had already turned back to the images in the mist pool and only had the time to look up. It was another Minion who answered her. "We waiting for new Master. Young Sayron lives with us in Netherworld for thirteen years, proving himself now." Then he leaped towards her, his lust for blood not in the least lessened by the fact his weapon was a blunt pitchfork. 

Jinx jumped to the side and ducked. The Minion flew over her head and landed some distance away on the stone floor of the throne room. Some others hurried to obey Gnarl´s command, but only one of them – the one wearing the tuque hat – managed to grab hold of Jinx and wrapped his arms around her neck. She barely prevented him from slitting her throat or breaking her neck. "So there´s no Overlord of this tower," she choked out. She was aware of the fact that Gnarl was now very carefully dividing his attention between the mist pool and her struggle with a now growing number of Minions. 

"And if there will be one, he´s only just proven himself. Won´t it be useful…" She panted when breathing became more difficult and she prevented a knife from reaching her vital organs at the same time, "…to have someone else around?" 

"A slave?" Gnarl mused with one and a half eyes on the images, wondering why she wasn´t dead yet but also considering her offer. "It´d be a beginning…" 

Even now all sorts of things inside of Jinx rebelled against the word ´slave´ - slaves were barely people at all, she couldn´t be one! – but even that would be better than death. She was very stubborn when it came to dying. "You´re working on a new Dark Domain, aren´t you?" She was talking very fast now, all the while fencing off the Minions. "Like the old days? Vessperion?" 

Now Gnarl looked at her with a pondering yellow eye. "You know his name? I thought he´d been removed from every writing in this Empire-ridden world." 

"I know his name," she confirmed, holding the Minions on her back still for a split second – long enough to see the images in the mist pool. There, in a white haze, walked an immense man wearing heavy armour and a crowned helmet, hiding his entire face save his smouldering orange eyes. He carried a large axe and was travelling through a snowy landscape, accompanied by fifteen or so Minions. 

"Why…" she gasped for breath and was forced to spin around, still trying to pry the Minion from her throat, "why did you let him live with you for all those years? He´s not just another candidate, is he?" 

Now she had Gnarl´s attention. "Hm. Maybe I´ve underestimated you. You´re not the average human wench." He nodded towards the Minions. "Let go of her, you fleabags. Conversations are slightly easier without one of the talkers fighting for their life." 

To Jinx´ enormous, but hopefully well hidden relief the Minions immediately let go and slid off her back. Some of them seemed disappointed, but others briefly tipped their helmets and, in one case, tuque hat. It was as if they´d _expected_ they wouldn´t be asked to kill her after all… 

Jinx walked out from amongst them and towards Gnarl, rubbing her throat. Surprisingly enough, she almost didn't have any real wounds. She was sore all over, but there were only a few cuts on her back that were actually bleeding. 

The Minions that had attacked her walked along, but she didn't feel threatened. She furiously wondered why. But she knelt down next to Gnarl anyway and looked at the moving images of the would-be-Overlord. She waited for Gnarl to speak. It didn't take long. 

"It is true, he´s not the average candidate. We shouldn´t have kept one of those with us for all those years," he chuckled, reliving fond memories of what had become of lesser candidates. "No, Sayron´s something different altogether. It isn´t very difficult to recognize his eyes. We have him from Nordberg. No idea how he got there though." 

"A son?" Jinx asked.

Gnarl bared his sharp, irregular teeth in a grin. "As I said, it wasn´t very difficult to see. His eyes and character betray him. True evil runs in the blood and I saw it immediately. By the way," he pondered, "I´ve got the same thing with you now, strangely… It´s like I´ve seen you before…" He stared straight at her for a few seconds and Jinx shivered slightly. Those large, yellow eyes of them were something she needed to get used to. 

"Anyway," the elder Minion shrugged while abruptly turning back to the mist pool, "we haven´t had a proper Master for far too long. The New Lands have never felt Evil´s iron grip – time to do something about it!" 

Jinx looked at the future Overlord as well. He´d found a camp of seal hunters in the meantime, and he and his Minions were busy with what they did best. "Stupid peasants," she muttered. "No backbone whatsoever and the loyalty of carrots." Indeed some of the hunters had thrown themselves at Sayron´s feet. 

"Well spoken," Gnarl chuckled with his eyes on Sayron. "Smash those igloos, Master!" he suddenly yelled. "Otherwise you´ll be standing knee-deep in hunters!" 

Clearly there was some kind of connection with the outside world, because the future Overlord turned and, with mighty blows from his axe, shattered the igloos, destroying the hideouts for the surviving hunters in the process. "Good one, Gnarl," his voice resounded. "Though I´m standing knee-deep in them anyway." 

"At least they´re very dead," the old Minion grinned. He seemed to re-notice Jinx. "All right, you´re hired. If you don´t satisfy, your entrails are on their way to Quaver´s harp. Let Kniff fly you back with the floating rock and go clean out the barracks." 

The brown Minion wearing the tuque hat jumped, grabbed her arm with a sharp-clawed little hand and dragged her along. Behind her she heard Gnarl again, giving Sayron his advice, and she pondered the fact that the elder Minion was, for this moment at least, the driving force behind the new Dark Domain. 

"Kniff," she started, and her Minion looked up at her, "did he advise Lord Vessperion as well?" 

Kniff nodded. "Yea, and many ´fore him. Gnarl is most oldest Minion here." 

"Hmm." Jinx through about it. She suddenly was out of the boring upper world and into the action, in the churning start of a newborn empire… if she saw things right. And she had already made her profit: she was still alive to see it all. 

So Gnarl had been advisor to all those Dark Lords. Especially in the beginning, with young and uncertain Lords, he was the brain… and at the moment the Overlord _was_ young and uncertain...

"Up there are Master´s private quarters," Kniff informed her when they´d reached the jutting platform with the floating rock again. The Minion pointed up, to a collection of larger, elongated windows high up in the tower, all ablaze with light. "We not supposed to come there." 

"How come? Sayron hasn´t got anything to say about the tower yet." It hadn´t been very hard to see that the future Overlord hadn´t actually seen the tower from the inside yet. He had to get inside through the blue portal on the ceiling, and he could only do so if the Netherworld accepted him as Overlord. "He doesn´t live there yet. Let´s take a look." Jinx tested her decision by taking a few steps along the platform. There wasn´t an answer from Kniff, so she stopped and asked: "How do we get there, exactly?" 

Behind her, she heard Kniff give a small chuckle and a heartbeat later, he´d grabbed her arm again. He was in for it. That meant she was right. This was interesting. As long as an Overlord hadn´t proven himself, his will didn´t mean much to his Minions… 

The small Minion with the tuque hat led her from the platform and into a tunnel curving its way along the outer walls. They soon were ascending some stairs and Jinx could see a blue light again; they were directly above the throne, on a balcony overseeing the large hall and the mist pool where Gnarl was still busy. Jinx and Kniff hurried even further up until they´d reached the very back of the throne room and a steep, spiraling staircase. 

It seemed to go on forever. Kniff ran up the steps fast enough, but Jinx had soon concluded that this staircase was designed to be the first line of defence for the Overlord´s privacy. 

"Kniff," she panted. 

The Minion looked back. "Yea?" 

"The Netherworld… is ablaze with magic." 

"Yea. Will grow when Master gets here." 

She huffed. "But the Empire… condemns magic. It´s a… tool of…" She wanted to say, ´evil´.

That was quite true. But it wasn´t what she meant. The Empire made it look like magic was unnatural, but it wasn´t. The floating rock, the mist pool, the portal on the ceiling… they all fit into the picture, they were where they should be. Part of the world. In sharp contrast to some of the Empire´s contraptions, like those Sentinels… Jinx shivered while thinking about them. 

"Magic´s normal," Kniff announced from three windings above her. And that was it, in his opinion. 

Jinx smiled to herself. She liked the way the Minion looked at things. 

After another short eternity on the winding stairs she finally set foot on solid rock again.

Kniff was loyally waiting for her. "So this…" she struggled to get hold of her breathing again, "is the private quarters?" 

In front of them was a large… well, cave. There was clearly work in progress. All over the walls, Minions were at work, hacking and polishing with surprising speed. The floor was full of debris. In the middle of the room, work was started on some kind of hollowing, like a pool. Traces of mosaic were visible among the dust and shards of rock. Shimmering light of torches and fire bowls illuminated the rough, half polished walls. 

Kniff walked out in front of her and greeted the working Minions. "Much to be done. Tower still young, far from ready…" 

Jinx looked about her in curiosity. She could see much beauty was hiding underneath the rough walls. Beyond a large, half blocked arch of rock lay another room, but Kniff walked past it. He clearly knew that really was forbidden terrain. 

In the corner of her eye, Jinx caught a glimpse of a fiery glow and she turned her head. From round the corner, a lava flow illuminated its surroundings and she approached it. Soon she saw her path was leading her to the outer wall of the tower, and another trail that led along the outside. She had a clear view of the entire void from here. From far above her head the stream of boiling lava threw itself into the immeasurable abyss. She walked along the balustrade. Still further ahead, a jutting balcony mirrored the platform far below her. Jinx walked towards it and leaned over the tip. 

Below her, below the level of the throne room, hundreds of floating rocks tumbled around the tower in some sort of slow-motion, like asteroids in orbit. In the distance, foaming rivers and streams of lava traced their way along the outer walls of the Netherworld into the very heart of the planet. 

"If I´d known something this amazing was directly beneath my feet…" Jinx whispered. "If I´d known magic looked like this…" The balustrade was the only thing between her and certain death, but she kept leaning further over it until she suddenly felt a familiar claw around her arm.

She turned to face Kniff. "Don´t fall," the Minion said with what could have been a concerned smile without all those pointy teeth.

He pulled her away from the edge and led her along the outside of the tower until there was a way inside again. The half-polished walls arched over them once more. 

"This is magic room," the Minion announced. "Where Master´s spells will come."  
>The magic room consisted of a deep well with a bridge halfway over it, and a second path curving its way around it. Jinx stepped on the bridge and looked down. In that depth, nothing was visible except a blinding white light. It was impossible to make out more. But she knew the well wasn´t connected to a lower level of the tower – another dimension was more likely.<p>

Their path took them in a wide circle past another room with a pool of lava in it. It was to be removed, according to Kniff. This was the place where the Master would leave his commands regarding the design of his tower, for the Minions to take care of it.  
>From the lava pool, a path led away from the tower, over a bridge and to a separate building. Kniff wouldn´t say anything about it, just that it was part of an idea Gnarl was quite contented with.<p>

They didn´t cross the bridge, returning to the first chamber with the working Minions instead. Kniff silently took her back to the winding stairs. Jinx tried to muster some courage – the way down had to be easier…


	3. Nordberg

**I do not claim this story. All credit goes to Sunjino who can be found on deviantart.**

**Chapter 2 – Nordberg**

The way down was easier. For Kniff. The brown Minion slid his way down the stairs for most of the way, while Jinx followed in a much slower pace – but running and tripping when she realized how far she was behind on him.

Still, when she got down she wasn´t as out of breath as after she´d gotten up in the private quarters. However she did gasp for breath as soon as she got back into the throne room.

This time it was of surprise. 

When both her feet were on the black marble, the entire hall exploded before her eyes – a soundless explosion of blue light. Pure bolts of azure magic played along every surface, and the girl and Minion – Kniff´s ears and the jagged edge of his knife, Jinx´ hair and clothes.

Then, just as suddenly as it´d started, it was over. But something had changed, down in the great hall. 

There, directly beneath the portal and in a wide circle of Minions, was the armoured man Jinx had seen earlier in the mist pool. 

Lord Sayron had arrived to claim his domain. 

"MASTER!" the Minions yelled, and Jinx jolted when Kniff did the same and hurried down the stairs to his Lord. She followed him as though she´d been hypnotized.

Sayron was an impressive sight up close. The final traces of magical energy flickered around his armour and fingertips and illuminated the blue, intricately tattooed skin of his arms. His eyes were ablaze with a fiery light from within the darkness of his helmet. The Overlord let his gaze trace through the hall and Jinx realized he was just as baffled as she´d been – he´d almost dropped the mighty axe he carried in his right hand. 

Kniff had reached the foot of the staircase and stood next to the throne. Jinx stopped next to him. Gnarl, who had been sitting in front of the throne, at first kept looking at Sayron with a very satisfied grin on his face, but then he noticed the two of them. He stared at them for a second.

"Where did you two come from?" he hissed. "Not the _private quarters_, is it?" 

Kniff ripped his exhilarated gaze from his new Master, realized his disobedience and visibly shrunk. "I´m sorry –" 

"A _disobedient_ Minion, the day the Master returns?" Gnarl´s voice was like a dagger in Jinx´ heart, and she could see the same applied to Kniff. The elder Minion didn´t raise his voice, but that only made it worse. 

The Overlord didn´t notice anything of the commotion at his throne, still being surrounded by overjoyed Minions. 

"Well, there is a traditional solution for disobedient Minions," Gnarl continued, suddenly cheerful. 

Kniff trembled. "No…" 

The elder Minion didn´t seem to notice him anymore. He turned back to Sayron, his eyes gleaming. He gestured at Jinx. "As for you, I know what I said, but Quaver doesn´t seem to have made it back from his little voyage with the Master, so the same applies to you. Be never seeing you again!" 

With those words, a thin tentacle of blue light whipped down from the portal on the distant ceiling, and Jinx felt herself being raised into the air. She barely made out Gnarl´s voice: "You are indeed our true Overlord! It´s a bit of a relief, Sire. We didn´t want to bury _another_ candidate…" 

_No,_ she thought to herself, while the entire world was being swallowed by a blinding blue glow. _But you don´t seem to have any problems with others at all…_

Cold. A blinding light that forced her to shut her eyes tight after the cosy darkness of the Netherworld. Something sharp, prodding her from all sides. And some more cold, by the way. 

Did she already notice the cold? 

"Uunkh…" she groaned, miserably. 

This really wasn´t her day. Where did she get herself this time? 

A soft whimpering to her right made her slowly open her eyes. She gravely considered closing them again, because everything was white and it badly hurt her retinas. But the whimpering continued and she could eventually make out the fact she´d landed in a bush of holly, the cause of the sharp prodding. She screwed her eyes to tiny slits and struggled out of reach of the pointy holly leaves. At the same time, she let her eyes grow accustomed to the light, until she dared open them fully. 

She was surrounded by snow on all sides, even above. Large white flakes sailed down on the soft, but painfully cold breeze and muffled everything, sight and sound, in a thick white blanket. After having looked about thoughtfully for a while, Jinx could see some skeletal trees not very far away, but as they too were covered in snow they were practically invisible. The only truly visible things in this white world where Jinx herself, the forcefully un-snowed holly bush and Kniff. 

It was Kniff who was whimpering, lying in the snow on his stomach with his hat pulled tight over his ears in agony. Even as she looked, there was less sound coming from his little body and he was trembling badly, but he obviously didn´t care anymore. He´d been separated from his Master, and nothing would ever be worth the effort for him again. 

Jinx approached him and knelt down. She carefully laid a hand on his back. Kniff didn´t respond. His trembling and whimpering stopped. 

"No, don´t freeze," she muttered. "Don´t," she spoke, louder this time. She grabbed the Minion round his waist and pulled him from the snow. His large yellow eyes were half shut.

She imagined Minions could survive the cold for quite a while – if they were marching behind their Master with the occasional bloodshed. It was out of the question for Kniff. And, as far as she knew, it could be possible that Minions quickly died without a Master. 

Still, she wasn´t going to abandon him. If the situation called for it, she could even make a nice meal out of him if he did freeze – presuming she didn´t. 

Jinx threw the Minion over her shoulder, stood up and looked about her. She had a rather powerful hunch they´d been dropped in the wilderness of Nordberg, the name that´d been given to both a wintry village and a vast area around it, reaching from the northern mountains to the western polar seas. 

Nordberg… 

The town where Sayron had been found. 

Well, that could be useful information, too. 

And, she thought while she started walking, she was, unbelievably enough, still alive. She´d been really lucky Gnarl was that distracted by Sayron´s arrival. But then again, she and Kniff could have sneaked round the back and flown to the barracks either way, if Kniff hadn´t been so fast in running down the stairs towards his Master an into Gnarl´s view. 

Good and bad luck, her day seemed to consist of it. Bad luck when she´d fallen into the river, good luck when Mortis fished her out and probably pumped some magic into her to save her life while he´d been at it. Bad luck when Gnarl found out about them being in the private quarters, good luck when he´d only banished them instead of ripping her entrails out. He might be old, but Jinx didn´t doubt the fact he could kill her in a heartbeat. 

She looked back. Her footprints were already snowing full. She turned and continued walking. She was already losing the feeling in her hands and feet. She wasn´t clad to be wandering around Nordberg. She was wearing a thin tunica, like everyone where she came from, and she foolishly enough even had taken it in. Her trousers weren´t much better and her shoes were already full of icy melt water. Kniff was wearing a rough pair of black fur pants, and a short poncho of the same material around his shoulders. As for the rest, he only wore his hat and the jagged knife at his belt. Jinx pulled it out and put it into her own belt. She needed it harder than he did at the moment.

She felt like she´d been walking for hours and the sun was low above the hills, red and wobbling, when Kniff opened his eyes again. Jinx didn´t even notice he was awake at first, because he didn´t move. He just hung over her shoulder, facing backwards, staring at the growing line of her footprints. Then he started to struggle. 

"Kniff," Jinx smiled with half-frozen lips. She stopped and put him down. "Welcome back." She walked on. Kniff stood there, while the snow gathered on his shoulders and head. His ears hung limp beneath his hat. 

Gnarl had banished him. He´d been separated from his Master. The very worst that could ever happen to a Minion. He really wanted to die as soon as possible, but… 

Jinx looked back at him. Kniff saw how pale she was, the ice on her eyelashes, her blue lips. She didn´t have much time left. 

He hurried to catch up with her. Then he pulled his knife from her belt and ran on. 

"Kniff!" 

The Minion didn´t look back, but ran off the path Jinx´d been following for so long and on towards the snowy, skeletal-forested hills. Soon he was a disappearing brown speck.  
>Jinx stayed where she was, trembling with fatigue, hunger and cold. He was gone. Just like that. She took him with her out of pity, and now he was gone. She was alone. <p>

Then a wolf´s howl resounded through the icy air, from the direction where Kniff´d disappeared. Things were getting better with the second. 

The howling continued, and before long she could see fast grey bodies leaping from the hills towards her. Still, she stayed where she was. The snow gathered in her hair and it didn´t even melt anymore. She couldn´t go any further. 

They were so large. She´d heard about the Nordberg wolves. The seal hunters always made sure their fires kept going all night, because there were always the wolves prowling around the camp, trying to get their teeth into the seal meat… and the hunters. Nothing had ever tamed them. 

Then why did she think there was something brown riding the back of the first wolf? 

The enormous grey beasts reached her, but didn´t surround her. They growled and yelped, but didn´t harm her. Because there, riding the back of the front wolf, was Kniff, sitting like it was the easiest thing in the world. 

He gave her a broad grin, his ears delightedly pointing upwards. "Wolfies are Minions´ friends!" 

Jinx gasped and nearly burst into tears. Her shoulders drooped and she staggered, but just before she could collapse into the snow face-first, the brown Minion dragged her onto the back of the wolf running next to him. 

Then, with her face and arms buried into the rough but surprisingly warm fur, the pack bounded off towards the hills again. 

On the spot where they´d disappeared, the steadily falling snow gathered in their tracks and erased them until there was nothing left at all.

A bit later and a bit further, in a pleasant warm darkness filled with rough hair and the smell of wet dog Jinx came to her senses again. A tiny bit of light streamed in, just enough to see she was in an underground burrow full of wolves. There were some cubs, too.  
>She didn´t move. She was broken. Still there was an irremovable grin on her face. <p>

"I thought I´d lost you, Kniff." 

The Minion sat with his back against the side of the wolf he´d ridden and rubbed its snout. The wolf growled contently. The glowing yellow eyes of the Minion were turned to face Jinx and Kniff grinned. He kept silent, and Jinx was left to guess why he´d saved her life – even after she´d saved his. Even banished Minions remained loyal to their Master… why did he help her? 

She wasn´t in the mood to ask. She sighed deeply and reveled in the incredible fact she was regaining the feeling in her hands and feet.

Even later still, she awoke from a sleep she hadn´t known she´d fallen into. Something wet and warm was pressing against her cheek. She curled out of the tight ball she´d been lying in and looked up. 

Inches from her face, the largest wolf she´d ever seen was lying, his paws stretched out in front of him and blood all over his snout. Between his claws, a piece of incredibly bloody meat lay steaming. The snow still covered it, but it was already melting in the warmth of the burrow. The wolf pushed it into her direction with his nose. 

She was used to more civilized meals. But the blood didn´t bother her as much as it should have, and the meat even seemed tasty, despite the clear teeth marks the wolf had made. Even the bit of white fur still left didn´t spoil her appetite. Her stomach noisily agreed, and that was all that was needed. Jinx attacked. 

When she was finished she affectionately rubbed the wolf´s now clean nose, wiped the last blood from her own face and crawled outside, where the sun had risen again. She expected to meet Kniff there, but she didn´t expect to be suddenly bombarded with a pile of fluffy white skins. 

"Hey!" she cried out, muffled by the fur. She pulled the skins from her face and looked up. There, sitting on a low branch in a leafless tree, Kniff was busy with his knife. More skins hung over his branch, and a few pieces of meat and rough material were shoved into a forked twig nearby. 

"Hi, Jinxie!" 

She came closer. "Where does that all come from? …Is that seal?" 

"Yup," the Minion answered. "Stupid smelly furballs, but useful for meat and skin." He grinned and pried some meat from between his pointy teeth. 

Jinx chuckled. "You went out hunting! Without me!" 

"Were still asleep. Strength needed here." Kniff gave her some strips of furless skin he´d cut from the seal fur. "Good clothes needed too. Put fur on the inside." 

"You´re busy," Jinx remarked while climbing to the branch next to him. "You´re up to something, aren´t you?" 

A barely noticeable shadow crossed his face. "Maybe." He pulled something from the bark behind him and handed it to Jinx. It was a large dagger, a sword almost, jagged like Kniff´s and with a bone handle. It was clearly from the Nordberg area. "Raided lone hunter. Clothes were unusable when wolfies were done," Kniff chuckled. 

"Thanks," Jinx said, a bit baffled. Then she got to work with a small smile, carefully making holes in the fur through which she could weave the strips of furless skin. After a while, she and Kniff had produced rough clothes, and with the fluffy white fur on the inside, things were a lot warmer. 

Strangely enough, an idea was still playing through her head. It was the idea to get to know more about his empire that was soon about to rise from underground. Until now, only a few people in Nordberg knew about it – the ones Sayron had terrorized to prove himself. And she herself, of course… 

Strange as it was, she still felt attracted to the Netherworld. She wanted to return, and it was rather obvious Kniff wanted nothing more either. 

Jinx put it out of her head. Everything in the Netherworld would kill her on sight, and probably her companion as well. 

She straightened her new vest. "What now?" 

Kniff jumped down from the tree. "Think we –" he started, but he abruptly fell silent. His ears flew upwards. A heartbeat later he sped off. "Follow," he hissed over his shoulder. 

Jinx followed without questioning him. Not a second early. The moment she and Kniff had hidden in some thick bushes behind the hill, something came marching into sight. And it wasn´t good. 

It was a group of twenty or so men, clad in green tunics and metal helmets Jinx had also seen on some Minions back at the tower. They carried round shields and short swords. At their head marched a single rotund man wearing a gold-coloured breastplate, a red cape and a red plume on his helmet. 

"Empire," Jinx hissed, full of disgust. Kniff nodded. His eyes were glowing brighter than ever and his ears stood straight up. His clawed hand was opening and closing around the handle of his knife, and it was obvious he wanted at them as quick as possible, despite his odds. Jinx pushed him down into the bush again. "You won´t survive that," she whispered urgently. "Stay here." 

"And what is this?" an unpleasant voice sounded. The two of them turned back to the formation again. It was the red-cloaked man that had spoken; the centurion. 

"Our tracks," Jinx whispered. She pulled Kniff´s arm, but the Minion stayed put and shook off her hand. 

"Wolf tracks," the centurion spoke. Several of his men muttered uneasily. "The mounts of evil." The centurion prodded the snow with his longer sword. Before long, he´d discovered the wolf burrow. Kniff was tense like a bowstring. 

Soft yelping sounded from the burrow, quickly turning to growls. Jinx noticed something happening in the group of soldiers. Then, she saw they´d gotten out bows. "Kniff, we´ve got to _do_ something…" 

"Won´t survive," he echoed her own words with a hollow voice. 

Then the wolves had had enough of the centurion´s poking. The large wolf that had offered Jinx his kill leaped to the fat man´s throat first, followed by the others. But behind their centurion, his men had readied their bows and a moment later it was raining burning arrows. The wolves didn´t stand a chance. Shortly after the snow was no longer white, and the stench of burning fur reached the bushes where Kniff and Jinx were still hidden, both frozen to the spot in a manner that had nothing to do with the cold. 

"That´s rid some allies of magic from this world," the centurion spoke, contently brushing the snow from his clothes. "Now to make sure there won´t be any new ones. Without doubt, there are cubs in there." 

Kniff growled like he´d become a wolf himself, but he was helpless while one of the soldiers threw a piece of burning wood into the burrow. A few minutes later the smoke drove out the remaining wolves. They, too, were killed to the very last cub. 

Jinx felt tears coming up. "Mother Goddess´ blood," she swore. "Plague-ridden sadists…" 

"Nothing we can do," Kniff replied in a hollow voice. He climbed out of the bush and walked off over the hill. Jinx followed. The Minion was walking fast, so fast she couldn´t catch up with him. She couldn´t see the expression on his face, and didn´t know if she wanted to.

For some time, they silently walked through the snowy wilderness. They followed a trail that was clearly used often, probably by hunters. On both sides of the path the growth was thorny and impregnable, and often their way led along deep gorges and high cliffs. They travelled for most of the day and only stopped a few times to rest and take in the white rabbits Kniff caught without much effort. 

Eventually the sun was sinking again. Here in the north, it was a very fast process and it didn´t take long before the world was dark and the snow acquired a silvery glow. An enormous, nearly full moon floated above their heads, accompanied by thousands of icy stars. Jinx was very grateful for her new warm clothes. 

Then suddenly a small red light appeared between the bushes alongside the path. Jinx screwed her eyes, but it was already gone. "Kniff," she began, but the Minion nodded and gestured for her to be silent. He crept forward and knelt. His white clothing made it difficult to make him out on first sight. 

After a while the red light returned, accompanied by several others. Some were red as well, other were gold-coloured or green. Now that Jinx was closer to them, she could see the lights were attached to the pointy hats of very small creatures, considerably smaller than Minions. They were almost entirely covered in black hair, save their large noses. They were jumping from right to left, up and down, and all the while squeaking softly. 

Kniff was listening intently. "They´re talking about…" he muttered, "big metal man… they´re at war with…" 

Jinx´ eyes widened. "Sayron´s been here!" 

"The Master," Kniff whispered. His eyes were glowing in the dark. More creatures were appearing, and the squeaking grew louder. 

"What are they saying?" 

"They attacked him!" The Minion was no longer whispering. He sounded offended and angry. The squeaky voices silenced and the creatures looked in their direction for a while. Then, they started squeaking again, while bouncing towards the sealskin-clad duo. 

"Stupid bloody gnomes!" Kniff yelled, charging at the advancing creatures with a battle cry.

The gnomes threw themselves at him, but it soon became clear they were very overconfident. Even alone, the Minion could easily overpower them, and many of the creatures were unable to get away from him as he kicked, stomped, hit about him and generally raged his heart out among them. As he let his anger and frustration out on them, the lights on their hats seemed to disattach themselves and float to the ground. Eventually no living gnomes remained. Kniff let himself fall on his back amidst the loose lights. His shoulders shook. 

Jinx carefully approached him. Soon she could see his shoulders were shaking with silent laughter. She laughed herself as she saw it. "Amused yourself, have you?" 

Kniff sat up. "Amused, yea." He chuckled and rubbed his eyes. "Needed it." 

Jinx smiled and reached for one of the twinkling lights around them. It was warm to the touch as she picked it up. It didn't slip through her fingers like she´d expected. She raised it towards eye level and curiously studied it. It seemed to consist of a shining golden core with a glowing haze around it. But the core wasn´t solid, because it was lying on the haze on her hand palms. 

She looked at Kniff, to see her own surprise mirrored on his face. His eyes were shooting from her to the light and back again. "Jinxie…" 

"Kniff, what is this stuff?" 

The Minion prodded the light. "Life force. Comes from any living thing. Minions get born from it in Hives. But only magical creatures can touch it…" 

Jinx stared into the light. It already started fading, like all the lights around them. "But…" she stammered. "I´m not… I mean, I can´t… The Empire would…" She thought about it. The Empire had its methods to track down magic, like the Sentinels. If they found some, Eradicators came. That was the end of the story, every time again. 

But the Sentinels had never noticed her. It was true they only turned up if strange lights or the like had been seen, and she´d never shown any. "…I´m not like Sayron. I´m not magical. You´ve got to be mistaken." 

"Magic not just blue lightning, Jinxie," Kniff said. "Many sorts exist. Yours is just well hidden." 

Jinx smiled weakly at those words. "You think?" _Maybe that´s why he´s following me._ But she didn´t ask. 

The Minion gave her a lopsided grin and stood up. Without another word he walked off in the direction the gnomes had come from. "Ha!" it sounded shortly after. 

Jinx looked round the trees. There, in the dark hill, was an even darker spot. "Another wolf burrow?" 

"No. Gnome hole," Kniff answered in a muffled voice, his head stuck down the hole. He pulled back and looked back at her. "Abandoned. Smelly, but have no other place to sleep." With those words he climbed inside. It was a narrow opening and he barely fit through.

When Jinx followed him, she had to widen the hole a bit, and her seal fur got smeared with earth all over before she was in. 

Inside it was smelly indeed, a nauseating mix of rotten fruit and small, dead animals. But it was warmer than outside in the icy night. 

"Good you killed them all," Jinx remarked. 

"Killing gnomes always good," was Kniff´s answer. "´Specially if they´re at war with the Master." 

"Always the loyal servant, eh?" 

"Always," the Minion replied with a serious face. "´Till after death, if I can." 

Jinx lay down as comfortable as she could and folded her arms behind her head in the earthy, smelly gnome hole. The second day in the wilderness had been tiring with the constant travelling and the never-ending cold. It didn´t take long for her to fall asleep. The last thing she consciously saw were Kniff´s watchful glowing eyes.

**Please review people. You know you want to, even if you don't please do. Now as I said the entire story belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart I am only publishing it on fanfiction so you can read it here. Thanks for reading and once again, please review.**


	4. A Fiery Midwinter

**I do not claim this story. It belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart. Overlord is not claimed, only the OCs.**

Chapter 3 – A Fiery Midwinter

The next morning dawned cold, shivery and way too early. When Jinx opened her eyes Kniff was already gone from the burrow, just like the previous day. There was an advantage attached to it; the thick blanket of snow that had covered the entrance during the night was already broken.

She crawled outside, but he was nowhere to be seen. His clawed footprints were still visible and they led into the woods, so she presumed he was out hunting. She stayed there, blowing on her hands for a moment, but then her gaze fell upon a couple of white bunnies beneath the trees some feet away.

She licked her lips, grinned and slowly drew her knife.

When Kniff got back with some birds and other small animals he'd caught, he found Jinx sitting next to a fully prepared meal. She even managed to find enough unfrozen wood to make a small fire, so this time their meat didn't have to be raw.

The Minion threw his kills in the snow next to the fire and chuckled delightedly. "Well done, Jinxie!"

"No, you well done with keeping me alive long enough to finally make me do something useful," Jinx laughed. "I think I´m going to learn how to survive."

Kniff lowered his head, but his ears stayed where they were – high and joyful. Then he looked about him. More than ever, Jinx had the feeling he had a plan and was driving them in a certain direction.

After breakfast – in Jinx´ opinion the best she´d had in ages, but that was probably the effect of the hunger – they immediately departed again.

That morning and afternoon, almost nothing made any effort to block their path, save some bothersome gnome colonies alongside the trail. Jinx knew Minions were brave and bordering on suicide, but gnomes topped it all. However the creatures were more annoying than dangerous and it wasn´t difficult to reduce them to small trampled spots in the path.

Kniff told her some of his kind liked to take the hats with them as some kind of trophy, but he himself didn´t do so – he already had a hat and he was proud of it. He had taken the tuque hat from Nordberg years ago when he and his horde members had taken Sayron with them. That was quite the story. Sayron had lived in the village for as long as he could remember, but everyone knew about his magic and hated him for it. Every other child bullied him, except one, whom Sayron often thought about: Kelda, a girl with red hair and green eyes.

Then, on Midwinter´s Eve, now thirteen years ago, the Minions had found him and recognized him as their new Master. They´d entered the village and aided him and the young Kelda in ruining the Midwinter party. The villagers had originally shut the gate in front of Sayron´s nose, but the Minions had hunted down some children and stolen their clothes to disguise themselves and help get their Master inside. The only piece remaining of those clothes now was Kniff´s hat.

The Midwinter party had been completely taken apart, the Minion told while walking. Jinx grinned while she listened to tales of lanterns becoming rather more useful as projectiles, used by the seemingly ´overtired´ children, decapitated snowmen and huge amounts of stolen fireworks granted a whole new purpose altogether. Eventually Sayron had managed to reach the two truly huge pieces of professional fireworks and sent them hurling towards the Midwinter tree. That´d been the best part of the evening, but the joy of the Minions and their new Master hadn´t lived long, because then the Empire had sounded their horn outside Nordberg´s gates.

Kniff explained the Empire had decided that had been the time to add Nordberg to their possessions. They had a governor at the ready: Borius, a fat, ugly man who was always looking like he smelled something nasty. They also had Sentinels with them: hooded figures that could trace magic. Jinx shivered when Kniff described them. It had been the Sentinels that had traced Sayron´s presence, and Borius had demanded Nordberg´s magic user to be brought out. After Sayron ruining the party, Nordberg´s mayor of that time didn´t have to think long before throwing the boy over the city walls.

The Minions hadn´t hesitated and had gone after their Master as fast as they could. They´d protected the boy against the soldiers and led him into the wilderness, and from there to a remote corner of the Netherworld, where he´d been raised until he was ready to truly become their Master.

Jinx made the story come full circle by calculating the date: it was exactly Midwinter.  
>She wondered if Kniff had only told her the story because the conversation had brought them on his hat.<p>

Late in the afternoon they reached the first of the clearings. The trees had been cut down and when they brushed the layers of snow away, they found holes in the frozen earth, like those made by tent poles. Kniff had a good laugh about it. "Must have been cold," he said. "Stupid Empire sleeps in tents… here!" He kept chuckling about it. Jinx was surprised the soldiers hadn´t all frozen to death in this icy land.

When they went on, they stumbled upon more spots where the Empire´d been camping. They had recently travelled through Nordberg, perhaps only a day ago. Jinx thought about it for a while, and eventually came up with an explanation for what was going on.  
>"That Master of yours went to Nordberg to prove himself, didn´t he…"<p>

Kniff nodded. "Showed strength, magic and tactics. In Nordberg."

"And that´s an Empire town, now. Under governor Borius. So they don´t want him barging in with that axe of his." Jinx thoughtfully tapped her dagger against her hip. "If they know about Sayron´s existence now… they don´t even have to know he escaped them earlier… they´ll want his head. The troops around Nordberg are being strengthened. Right now."

"Good," was the only thing Kniff said. His sharp teeth were bared in a fixed grin and he kept looking straight ahead.

"And that also means we´re travelling towards Nordberg Town." Jinx half playfully slapped the Minion against his hat. "You! Maybe you had a plan, eh?"

Kniff kept walking. Jinx kept next to him. "We´re walking towards our deaths, you and me."

"Yea," the Minion said, "or the Master." He turned to face her. "Midwinter, thirteen years later."

"You think he´ll return." Jinx saw the look in his eyes. "You _know_it," she corrected herself. She stared ahead with empty eyes. What had gotten into her? She was tailing a Minion still loyal to his former Overlord, who was dragging her to a heavily guarded city which now knew about the Minions and would kill her, too, for travelling with one…

But Kniff had dragged her onto the wolf´s back. He had taken the wolves with him to hunt and had returned with meat and skins. He´d saved her life.

Jinx sighed, her breath leaving her mouth in a large plume of steam. She already knew she´d follow him. Even if it was to keep up the illusion he was following _her_. She had to confess it hurt her, to know that wasn´t the case after all. The entire time, he´d been planning to take a last leap in his endeavour to return to Sayron´s side. Even if he knew the other Minions would kill him.

Oh well. She should have expected it. He was a Minion. He was just a Minion.

Jinx looked down on the ragged tuque hat with the large bat-like ears underneath. Then she knelt, grabbed Kniff around his waist, hugged him tightly, put him down and walked on through the heavy snowfall.

It remained silent behind her.

Jinx raised her fist. "Well, to Nordberg it is. Onwards towards certain death for the gods, nation and apple pie!"

She walked on for some time. Suddenly a snowball exploded against the back of her head.  
>She whirled around. Kniff had hurried to follow her and was already making a new snowball.<p>

The Minion looked at her with large yellow eyes. "And the Master!" he yelled.

Jinx laughed and bent down to defend herself.

"And the wolfies…" He was very fast in making the projectiles, and every word was emphasized with a white explosion that might or might not have reached its goal. Before long they were bombarding each other like lunatics, running along the path that would take them to Nordberg. The time seemed to speed up, and Jinx suddenly realized he wasn´t just a Minion after all. He hadn´t died. He´d lived after she´d taken him on her back. And he´d concerned himself about her.

The freezing, crystal clear afternoon flew past, and soon the sun was already sinking.

It got dark early that evening. It was, after all, Midwinter, the night darker than most. The stars seemed to be veiled above the sharp, leafless branches of the trees and the silent snow was falling slowly. The enormous moon was completely full now and floated just above the horizon.

There was something else floating above the horizon. There seemed to be a column of blue light rising from beyond the next hill. Jinx only noticed it when Kniff was already storming towards it. She followed him in a slower pace and out from between the last few trees.

There, on top of the hill, was a remarkable sight waiting for her.

It seemed to be a crown of great black spikes, curved and reaching for the dark skies like a huge claw. At the front, a low flight of stairs led to the center, from which a steady stream of blue light was rising towards the heavens. It did have something in common with the northern lights. The thing was enormous, at least five meters across. Around it were another four miniatures, every one of them about a meter across, with lights of their own in golden yellow, red, green and light blue. The golden and red ones were the only ones that were fully ablaze; the green and blue ones were merely twinkling and barely visible.

Kniff stood there staring at them. As Jinx approached he turned, his eyes glowing fiercely and his ears perked. "A Tower Gate!" he pointed, excitedly. "Master´s been here… and Minion Gates!" He turned towards the shining objects again. He seemed to hesitate, but then ran for the golden gate and jumped into the light.

And disappeared.

Jinx ran after him, but stopped when she heard voices coming from the gate.

"Who´s that?" a raspy voice clearly belonging to a Minion sounded.

"Tuque hat… is Kniff," another invisible Minion answered.

"Kniff! Away with!" A short yelp of protest was heard, and then Kniff came sailing out of the light with a high arch. He landed in the snow with a muffled thud, and the way he lay there made Jinx think of his reaction to being dropped in Nordberg two days ago. This time however, he got to his feet himself.

_They don´t want him back,_ she thought. _Even if we find Sayron and the horde, they don´t want him back._

The Minion looked at her, and to her surprise he was still cheerful. "Expected that," he shrugged. He walked over to the red gate. "So the Master´s found the Reds…" He stared into the red light and gestured for Jinx to come next to him. When she outstretched her hands towards it, she felt the light was hot like a bonfire, very pleasant even with her new warm clothes.

She peered through the falling snow. There were more lights. They´d reached the gates of Nordberg Town… but they were firmly shut. However, between them and the enormous wooden doors lay a trail of destruction: broken fences, a ripped and scorched Empire tent, an abandoned ballista…

Suddenly a muffled explosion sounded to their left, beyond the hill. Immediately, Kniff diverted his attention from the red light and sped away from Jinx and the Gates. "Reds! Reds and explosives get on like a house on fire!" he yelled while running through the slowly descending snow.

Jinx sprinted after him. At the foot of the hill Kniff dived to the right and into a deep gorge that had split the cliff face in two sharp halves. There were recent footprints in the snow on the bottom, so many they weren´t clear anymore, but in some places at the edges of the gorge a hint of sharp claws was visible…

Jinx also noticed, in certain places where all the snow had been brushed away, some kind of tracks were running through the gorge, like there was some kind of vehicle that needed to pass through here.

Suddenly a rattling sounded from further on. At the same time, a wolf howled nearby. Kniff grabbed her arm and ran on. The gorge took a sharp turn, and beyond it lay an opening in the frozen cliff face. There, in the safe darkness, the girl and the Minion pressed themselves against the freezing walls next to the opening and carefully peered outside. Soon, the rattling came closer and eventually a small cart came into view, stacked with several red barrels. Fuses were sticking out at all angles and it was the most obvious explosives Jinx could think of. As the cart rattled past, she could see it was being pushed by four Minions.

But not Minions like the ones she knew.

These Minions´ skins weren´t brown, but red. They seemed to glow from the inside, because their ribs were silhouetted on their backs. Instead of large bat-like ears they had curling horns sprouting from the sides of their heads. They also had tails, short and with arrow-shaped points at the ends. They didn´t seem to be cold, because all they were wearing were loincloths.

Kniff jumped up and down, grinning like an idiot. "Reds!" he whispered furiously while pointing at the new Minions. "Were lost since…"

Jinx pressed a finger against her lips. Then she looked back outside. There was something else to be seen now and it wasn´t anything less than Lord Sayron. He strode after the cart with great purpose, his enormous axe in hand and leaving deep footprints with his heavy boots. Behind him came the rest of the Minion horde, some of them red, others brown and riding wolves. The Nordberg wolves really did have some kind of friendship with Sayron and the Minions, then. Jinx wondered how it´d got this way.

"Was great!" one of the wolf riders sighed. "That what bombs for. Not for digging."

Jinx nodded slowly. They´d gotten the gunpowder from a quarry. That explained the cart. She now recognized it as a mine cart beneath all those fuses. She suppressed a chuckle. Then she had to do it again with even greater force, because she remembered the tracks leading towards the Nordbergian gates when they´d disappeared below the snow… the mine carts clearly were normally used to transport the ore into the town, but now that would be going slightly different…

"Kniff, I have to see this," she said, shaking with silent laughter. She grabbed the Minion and stepped out of the cave. "They´re far enough, come on!" The two of them hurried along the tracks and after the horde, leaving the gorge just in time to see the four reds pushing the cart off the hill so it could roll to Nordberg´s closed gates. Then they quickly re-joined Sayron and the horde. Not a moment early, for a dozen arrows already buried themselves in their footprints.

Jinx looked up. There, high upon the city walls, a legion of archers was placing new arrows on their bowstrings. They were clad in blue tunics, helmets and armour.

"Empire," she spat for the second time in as many days.

Kniff pulled her elbow. "Look!" he whispered.

Jinx slightly lowered her attention. There, in front of Sayron and out of the archers´ range, all of the reds had raised their arms. A fiery glow played around their claws, and when the first of them made a throwing movement a ball of fire flew towards the gates and the cart.

"Oh, yes," Jinx muttered, filled with glee as the others followed his example and gradually lit all of the fuses from a safe distance. "Yes…"

The Minions in the horde covered their ears. Kniff and Jinx did the same.

It wasn´t enough to shut out the explosion.

There was a flash of brilliant light and a mighty roar, echoing for a sure ten seconds amongst the gorges. A gigantic ball of fire mushroomed up through the falling snow, and half a dozen archers was thrown up in its wake. A wave of heat smacked even Jinx and Kniff in their faces. A fountain of snow, ice and splinters of wood sprayed up. When the dust had settled, nothing was left of Nordberg´s sturdy gates. A great part of the city walls was gone as well, and a gorgeous crater marked the spot where everything had been.

For a while, the crater was the only thing between the ruined walls, but it wasn´t to be that way for long. Soon, gleaming shields appeared in the night. This city was still under the reign of the Glorious Empire and they´d do anything to keep it that way. Sayron tightened the grip on his axe. Behind him, the Minions were cheering and shouting.

Kniff´s ears were raised higher than ever and trembled with excitement. Jinx had never felt as sorry for him as at this moment.

Something growled behind them.

And then, things were suddenly happening very fast.

Lord Sayron threw himself between the shields and swords of the first legion with all his force. All around him, his Minions were doing the same, hacking, jabbing, strangling and even biting, while the reds stayed their distance and used their fire to set the tunics, and soon the flesh, of the soldiers ablaze. Blood sprayed across the snow. The little Minions worked their way through the formation and attacked again from the other side, so the men had to turn around and bare their backs to the rest of the horde and their Master. On their way through the snowy land, they´d defeated many legions already, and the conquest of Nordberg started out very well indeed.

The wolves were also playing their part. They struck the soldiers with even more fear than Sayron himself; like Gnarl said: a drooling wolf looking at you like you´re a giant ham can send the bravest of men fleeing for his life while screaming for his mother…

Then his red-hot eyes fell upon a couple of wolves without riders. At first, he thought some browns had gone on without them, but then he saw the Minions were all still on wolfback like he´d said they should when they´d come across the burrow. These wolves were new.

And one of them was carrying a girl with short black hair, dressed in white fur.

Lord Sayron raised his eyebrows beneath his helmet, but was forced to turn around when he was attacked in the back.

He´d find out later…

Kniff cheered like a lunatic while he and his wolf raced through the legion. He stabbed everything that moved with this jagged knife, cutting and slicing wherever he could, and several soldiers fell into the snow screaming as he slit their knee tendons or wounded them more severely still. He saw other Minions looking at him with surprise, and gave them all a wild grin. He´d prove he deserved his spot in the horde!

Above the clashing of battle he heard Jinx screaming, a feral war cry. He looked around and saw her raging between the soldiers from the back of her own wolf. His eyes flashed. Jinxie should have been born a Minion, from the life force she held as easily as he did.

Sayron and the Minions fought with the spirit of a tornado and it barely took them ten minutes to chop the entire legion to pieces. The soldiers further up the snow-covered streets backed away visibly, but the Overlord didn´t waste any time and continued the pursuit.

Kniff egged his wolf on and ran past his Master. Another wolf and Minion followed and came running next to him. "Kniff, bugger off," the Minion snarled.

"No, Rasp," Kniff shook his head. "Not again."

"Stripe´ll skin you alive," Rasp warned with a gesture to the horde behind them. There, next to Sayron, ran the largest wolf with the largest Minion on its back. He carried a long sword and wore the red-plumed helmet of a centurion. His eyes weren´t glowing yellow, but a fiery orange. As he aggressively snapped out towards the door of one of the houses, which had been carefully opening but now banged shut again very fast, the white stripe on his back became visible.

"Stripe´ll take me back into the horde," Kniff replied. And with that, his wolf sped up and he was the first to throw himself into the retreating second legion.

Rasp found himself grinning and ran after him.

Jinx caught the Overlord´s gaze from her position on the large wolf next to him. She was lower than him, but he was far larger anyway. His glowing orange eyes turned away from the enemy ahead for a moment and fixed her instead. "What are you doing here?" he asked her in a booming, but not overly threatening voice.

"I´m helping you, Lord," Jinx yelled above the wolf´s panting and the noises of battle ahead.  
>Sayron raised a hand and looked at his heavy metal gauntlet in surprise. At his wrist, an amber-coloured jewel was set into it, glowing softly. "Did I use a domination spell on you? I don´t remember doing so."<p>

"I´m helping you because I want to," Jinx said. "I´m –"

A voice interrupted her. "I have banished this wench together with a disobedient Minion, Sire," it sounded from the empty air. Jinx knew that voice. It was Gnarl. "They should have perished in the snow. But it seems they will still do so."

Sayron and Jinx looked at each other for a second. Then Jinx urged her wolf on and sped forward to the chaos that was the second legion.

The second legion soon was as dead as the first one. Bodies and large pools of freezing blood lay in the trampled snow by the time Sayron and the Minions were done. There was time for a short pause to catch their breath. Some Minions had fallen, and others had lost their wolves. Sayron used the moment of rest to step over to a small alley and call up a golden gate with a broad gesture of his hand. The jewel in his gauntlet flashed the same colour as he waved his hand again, and Minions came tumbling from the gate. They landed on their feet and hurried towards their positions in the horde. Jinx realized these were the same Minions that´d kicked Kniff out of the earlier gate. She was satisfied to see their baffled expressions as they saw the grinning Minion atop the wolf.

When Sayron had replenished his horde, the hunt continued. A couple hundred yards from the alley, a small river crossed the town, and the only route over it was over a stone bridge. The Overlord and Jinx cursed their luck together as they saw the Empire knew a thing or two about explosives, too. As they watched, five fuses burnt up until they reached the red barrels, and while the green-tuniced men hurried a safe distance away from the reds´ fire, the entire bridge went up in smoke. That way was shut. Jinx urged her wolf on and looked down from the crumbling edge, but the water was flowing very fast and swept along ice flows, too. None of them would survive that, even if Minions would be able to swim.  
>She turned. Sayron and the horde had turned left, where the streets were steeper. She started going after them, but then caught movement in the corner of her eye. She looked harder. There, on the rooftops, was a group of people; not of the Empire, but Nordberg villagers. They were holding something…<p>

"Look out!" she yelled. At the same time, the men and women threw the lit sticks in front of the Overlord.

It turned out to not be dynamite after all, because it cracked and sizzled in far smaller explosions of red and blue on the cobblestones. But still there was screaming of some all too hasty Minions as the fireworks scorched them badly. Jinx hissed and sprinted back to them.

On many of the rooftops, villagers were standing with their fireworks. There was also another Empire legion waiting for them, blocking their path.

The roofs, however, were decked in straw and many of the reds had already made their conclusion themselves. To Jinx´ surprise, they ran straight through the crackling fireworks and towards the houses, where they started lobbing their own fire at the villagers. Soon, the roofs of the entire street were ablaze and the way was clear. Some reds climbed the burning roofs and seemed to glow and sizzle themselves – the fire filled them with new energy. They also had a great spot for throwing fire at the legion ahead.

Down in the street, Sayron and his horde were raging towards the legion as well and ploughed through it with new strength.

Jinx shivered for a moment while listening to all the screaming – the people trying to get off the burning rooftops, the soldiers of the third legion, the Minions – but then she remembered the wolves. The brethren of the animal she was riding now, slaughtered to the last cub by soldiers like the men she was fighting now. And the people – thirteen years ago that Empire governor, Borius, claimed this town against their will.

And she remembered all too well what the Empire had done to her mother, all those years ago.

So she sat up straight on the back of her wolf and let her dagger have its way.

Kniff was very aware of the other Minions´ disapproving gazes, hard though he might be fighting. He´d acquired deep cuts on his chest and back, some of them still bleeding despite the cold, and there still was a broken arrow sticking out of his shoulder he couldn´t reach. His face was scorched with the fireworks he´d thrown himself at as one of the first. But he bit through the pain, because he knew he´d had to do his very best to be accepted back into the horde.

He kept an eye on Stripe at all times. The large Minion with the scar on his back had been the leader for years, and he´d be the one to make the decision – after the Master, of course…

Sayron cleanly cut the last trembling man of the third legion in half and wiped his axe on the already bloody green tunic. He hadn´t had a second to catch his breath before Gnarl´s voice bombarded his ears. "That wench and Minion are not to be trusted, Sire –"

"Gnarl," Sayron calmly spoke, "shut up for a second, will you?"

Shocked silence. Then: "…Of course, Sire."

Sayron stepped forward and swore. There was a new group of shields further up the hill already. But those shields were trembling as a single first wolf stormed at them, carrying a Minion full of cuts and scorches. There was even a broken arrow sticking out of his shoulder.

The Minion was wearing a tuque hat.

"That untrustworthy Minion of yours is the best fighter so far. If you´ve banished him, I´m taking him back."

Jinx was the second to plunge into the new legion. For a moment, she and Kniff were the only warriors, then a new Minion on wolfback followed. The Minion ran to Kniff.

"The Master took you back," he called towards his fellow combatant, whirling a small axe above his head as he did so.

Kniff let out a wild cry of joy and urged his wolf on so hard he spontaneously flew out of the legion, between the soldiers´ legs, and emerged on the other side. Jinx grinned widely. He made it, he´d been taken back!

Kniff shot out of the legion and was about to turn round again to attack their backs, but then something caught his eye. There, on a wooden platform, a rotund man in golden armour and a red cape was standing.

For a second, Kniff´s yellow eyes stared into the centurion´s. He recognized that fat face. This was the man who´d given the order for the wolves to be killed. And also the one throwing all those soldiers at them throughout Nordberg´s streets. And here he was, without his last legion to defend him…

Kniff looked back. Stripe was busy with the legion. He knew he had to time this carefully. The Master might have taken him back, but browns still lived by the survival of the fittest, and he hadn´t proven himself to Stripe yet.

The men at the back of the legion were archers, as usual. Kniff turned and let his wolf jump at the throat of one of them. The man never knew what hit him, but he did feel something pry his bow and arrow from his limp fingers.

Kniff struggled to draw the bow, eventually succeeding. But he wasn´t ready yet. A quick glance at the houses on his right made him notice some pieces of not yet exploded fireworks, and the many sparks still fluttering from the burning rooftops. He egged on his wolf and ran towards them. While doing so, he tore the feathers from the back of his arrow and stuck a piece of firework on it, which he lit with some help of a burning piece of straw falling from the roof above his head…

The centurion saw his legion being ground to dust and started getting afraid. He turned, slowly and glancing backwards, and then made a run for it as fast as he could.

"Governor Borius!" his voice sounded. "Governor Bo-" He faltered, then clawed at his back. Something horrible had pierced his cloak.

One explosion later it was raining red shreds, not all of them originally cloak fabric.

Without their centurion, the soldiers made headless chickens look composed. They let their despair get the better of them and dropped their defence in the most incredible of ways, and not five minutes later there was nothing left but wolves, Minions, an Overlord and a girl, panting and laughing amongst the bodies.

Some distance away, an even worsely scorched Minion turned his wolf. Kniff called out in triumph, raising his way too large bow. "That one for wolfies!" he yelled, picking up a ragged red piece of cloak and tying it around his shoulders. With his bow in one hand and his jagged knife in the other he looked straight at the leader of the horde. "What you say now, Stripe!"

Stripe stared back, his enormous wolf slowly approaching Kniff´s. Then, suddenly, the ears of both wolves flew up and voices sounded through the snow-, blood- and ash-covered street.

"You´re rather disappointing me, Borius." This voice sounded very stuck up and snobbish, and contained a good portion of contempt.

"Marius, brother, you can´t expect me to be used to _demons_…" a nervous, but equally snobbish voice answered.

"You know Emperor Solarius sent you here to let you prove you´ve got a backbone beneath that blubber, don´t you?" the first voice mocked.

"He hasn´t," a new voice rang out. This one was very different, defiant and impudent, and more importantly belonging to a woman. "It´s blubber all the way through."

Lord Sayron seemed to snap out of some kind of trance and sprinted towards the voices as fast as he could. At the end of the street, three people were standing, but even as the Overlord and his horde approached they seemed to disappear downwards. As the first Minions arrived and looked down, it became clear the hill ended in a sheer cliff with a wooden lift attached to it – which the three had acutely used to get out of the horde´s reach.

Jinx inspected them, as they quickly crossed the square deep below to make sure the reds´ fireballs couldn´t reach them. One of the men was very fat, and as he looked round she could see his upper lip was curled in a permanent look of disgust. That had to be Borius, the appointed governor of Nordberg. The Empire´s weak effort to claim the city.

The second man was considerably skinnier and had a balding head. As Borius, he was dressed in a white toga lined with fur. That´d be Marius, Borius´ brother… Jinx knew that name. Marius was the Speaker for the Emperor – who never spoke in public – and the head of those horrible Sentinels.

The third figure was a slender woman in a practical dress and thick fur coat. She had short, flaming red hair and because she furiously kept looking back while the men dragged her along, Jinx could make out her brilliant green eyes even from this distance.

Red hair. Green eyes. She looked up at Sayron. "Lord…"

He seemed frozen to the cliff´s edge. His glowing eyes seemed misted over. That confirmed Jinx´ hunch: that woman was no one less than Kelda, his only friend from the Nordberg days.

Even as she looked at him, the Overlord seemed to righten himself and he looked round, always searching for the next way. He pointed to the right. "That way," he ordered with grim pleasure.

To their right lay a Nordbergian villa on top of the high hill. Here, Borius had spent his days as the town´s governor. In front of the villa lay a small square with, overlooking the rest of the city, a large marble statue of its inhabitant on six pillars. The statue was idealized, but still very, very heavy.

"Destroy that," Sayron ordered. Immediately, the Minions jumped at it and started attacking the statue´s support. The Overlord himself also stepped in and started banging away at the slender pillars. It didn´t take long for the statue to collapse on the shattered square stones.

"Over the cliff with it," the next order sounded. The Minions chuckled while pushing Borius´ image over the edge, where it shattered on the larger square with an enormous crash. From the empty air, there sounded suppressed laughter from Gnarl, back at the mist pool in the tower.

"I like your style, Sire," he remarked. "Nice move."

"Thanks," Sayron said. He stepped back across the square and started descending the hill. "Let´s go down and remove _all_traces of Empire from this town…"

As they left the square, Jinx noticed two little, frail old men who´d fearfully been hiding in a shadowy corner. "You think that´s imposing?" one of them asked in a quivery voice.

"Oh yes, very imposing," the other answered. "I used to impose like that, you know, back in the day…"

Back at the exploded bridge, they took the right trail, leading along the city walls. It soon became clear there were quite a lot of archers around. For a while, they had to run along a wall too high for any of them to climb, until there finally was a wooden staircase up towards the platform where the archers were standing. There was, however, some bad news too.

There was an enormous ballista at the ready to defend the stairs.

It was a large wooden structure, firing long arrows with fear-inducing speed, and it was one of the Empire´s most deadly weapons. It was demonstrated as a single arrow hissed through the air, impaling a red Minion and burying itself into a wall several meters away. The Minion hung there, steaming red blood pouring from his glowing chest. The wooden arrow burst into flames as he raised a hand, but a heartbeat later he was dead.

Sayron turned back to the reloading ballista. "We´re hijacking that thing," he shouted. The Minions – and Jinx – screamed their agreement and stormed up the stairs, all the way being shot at by the individual archers, but gradually less by the ballista itself as the large war contraption had trouble firing close by. The red and brown Minions put their strengths together to dispatch the archers, and eventually only the ballista remained. There were sixteen Minions left in the horde and the ballista was unable to fire.

Sayron dragged one of the five men controlling the contraption from his seat and let him dangle on glowing eye level. "What now?" he asked with an invisible grin.

The man whimpered, clearly about to faint. Sayron brought his helmeted face even closer to his. "Boo," he whispered. The soldier fainted.

Sayron threw him to the ground for the Minions to deal with, and dispatched the four others as well. The ballista was theirs.

"Minions, on it," he commanded. Five Minions took the places of the soldiers; two for aiming and firing, two for reloading, one to hand new arrows from the storage. Sayron stepped onto the main platform and peered through the whirling snow. He suspected something. He knew this town. And yes: from here, he could see Marius, Borius and Kelda. The two men had taken the woman with them and were now hiding behind Nordberg´s last soldiers, at the back of the large square. Sayron´s gaze travelled along the city walls. Then, he grinned. Near to the group, on a watchtower, there was another marble statue of Borius. There were probably more, and he would destroy them all, but he had a special purpose for this one.

He gave the order to fire the ballista and the huge arrow impaled some soldiers to Borius´ left. The fat man fled to the right.

Sayron turned to the rest of his horde. "Go to the statue," he said, gesturing to the marble abomination. "Wait for my command." Then he turned back to the fleeing governor and continued driving him along the city walls to the spot he wanted him to be. The soldiers had scattered into all directions. They had no moral left whatsoever, circumstances being what they were.

Even while Jinx was watching, a blue flame seemed to be combusting where Marius stood, and he disappeared in a flash of light. She widened her eyes in surprise. From the empty air, Gnarl agreed with her: "Considering the Empire condemns magic, that looked awfully magical to me…"

Sayron didn´t answer him. He was completely focused on Borius. Eventually he raised his hand and the Minions stopped firing. The fat man stayed where he was, panting at a spot near the city wall, not very far from them…

"Now, lads," Sayron´s booming voice rang out.

Governor Borius of Nordberg, shivering, terrified and exhausted, heard something scraping above his head. He slowly looked up. There, staggering on the edge of a watchtower, was a large, very heavy marble statue. It depicted himself, arms raised in blessing.

Borius threw up his arms in the same gesture and screamed.

It didn't help him in any way.

Sayron, Jinx and the Minions left the ballista and casually picked their way to that fatal spot at the city walls. There, half buried beneath his own statue, lay Borius. He´d almost made it to safety, but his head lay crushed beneath one of the statue´s raised arms anyway. He lay in the exact same position as his marble reflection.

Sayron looked at the scene for a second, his axe laid over his shoulder in a relaxed manner. His eyes rippled. Then he burst out laughing. Jinx couldn´t contain herself any longer either and laughed with him, full of relief she´d survived it all, the throwback of the last days, and the pure genius of the situation.

Stripe and his wolf calmly stepped towards Kniff, who finally managed to reach backwards far enough to pull the arrow from his shoulder. The scarred Minion looked at his fellow combatant for a second. Kniff seemed to want to back away. Then, Stripe took off his golden, red-plumed helmet. "Was beautiful, Kniff," he spoke in a rough voice. "Should have taken the helmet though."

Kniff laughed exhaustedly and lowered his head. "Already have helmet," he answered, plucking at his hat. Stripe slapped his good shoulder.

Across the square, a figure came running through the softly whirling snow. It was Kelda.

"Sayron? Is it really you?" She laughed. "You came back!"

"Kelda," the Overlord spoke uncertainly.

"You departed rather quickly, thirteen years ago," Kelda chuckled. "Are you taking me with you this time?"

"Yes," Sayron answered. "Yes, I´m certainly taking you with me now." His eyes rippled again as he grinned wider than he´d ever done before.

With those words, something huge clawed a way up through the cobblestones of the square. It unfolded itself like a black, spiky flower. A blue light drifted upwards.

"Grubby´s set up a Gate, Sire," Gnarl´s voice sounded. "Return to the Netherworld and we´ll celebrate!"

Sayron and Kelda looked each other in the eyes. Kniff, on his wolf next to Stripe, turned to face Jinx. He grinned. "On to the Netherworld for gods, nation…"

"And apple pie," Jinx grinned back.

And they left Nordberg behind them and stepped into the blue light, laughing.

The two little old men had carefully picked their way downhill, through the streets filled with debris until they´d reached Borius. In the meantime, doors were opening all over the city and people were carefully poking their heads out. The city was a mess, but the soldiers were gone… after thirteen years, they were free again…

"I was once crushed by a statue, you know, back in the day… not completely, of course…" one of the old men mused.

His companion thoughtfully examined their former governor and scratched his chin.  
>"You think we can steal his shoes?"<p>

**Nordberg is claimed in the name of our master the Overlord. All hail the Overlord! If you don't want a group of minions to hunt you down then press that review button**


	5. There and back again

**I do not claim this story. It belongs to Sunjinjo on Deviantart. Neither of us claim Overlord, the OCs belong to Sunjinjo.**

Chapter 4 – There and back again

The rest of the night passed in a haze. Jinx remembered Sayron, Kelda, the Minions and herself descending in the throne room with a flash of light, at the exact spot they´d departed from three days earlier – and she sure remembered the sudden gust of warmth.  
>Gnarl, the ancient Minion, immediately came hobbling towards them from his spot next to the throne, wiping away tears of evil joy. He clasped his wrinkled hands together and made a low bow. "Oh, well done, Sire! I rarely saw Masters manage this sort of thing this early!" <p>

Next to Gnarl stood another brown Minion, sporting a fools' hat and a glass eye. He turned out to be Quaver, the one who'd been about to receive Jinx' entrails. He appeared to have a harp of his own by now however, stolen by Sayron from the same spot where he'd found the red Minions: an elven sanctuary beneath Nordberg's icy hills. The Overlord had conquered it in the three days when Jinx and Kniff had been away. 

"There was a boy from the Nordberg Town  
>Who sent the locals screaming,<br>But now the boy's become a man,  
>He'll start his evil scheming!" Quaver sang, dancing around the battle party with the rhythm of the harp and a drum. "Congratulations, Sire, I knew you had it in you." <p>

Large quantities of elven wine had been looted from the sanctuary as well, so the Minions – appreciators of a bit of alcohol – were in the right mood in no time. Jinx, too, was cheerful very soon and she saw with surprise that Kelda was partying with them, dancing right in the middle of the throne room with her dress whirling about her. She also saw quite a lot of scars on the red-haired woman's bare arms now she'd taken off her heavy coat, casually throwing it over the throne itself. Sayron didn't seem to mind at all. 

Later, approaching dawn, fifty brown Minions of average experience were sent to Nordberg to defend the city. It belonged to the Netherworld now, and Gnarl said that Sayron was to impose his influence on it. Sayron didn't pay much attention. It was clear the Nordbergians were more than happy to be rid of Borius and his men, and to visit now and again would be enough influence if the Minions would be patrolling as well. Some Minions returned with large casks of mead, a traditional Nordbergian spirit; a clear sign of gratitude – or fear – from the villagers. It made the night a bit hazier, too. 

From then on, Jinx didn't remember much. As the sun started to rise in the outside world, she collapsed and knew nothing more, except for the amazing warmth and the slightly off-key tones of Quaver's harp, while he sang, as from far away: 

"Feisty Kelda's come to join us,  
>She looks handy in a brawl,<br>I hope she won't cut off my head  
>And mount it on the wall..."<p>

She didn't exactly know what waked her the next day. Maybe it was the soft creaking of wood, or the even softer rocking, or the faint sound of Minion voices close by. But one of those had been the cause, and Jinx was awake and looking about her to see where on earth she'd been sleeping. 

She was lying on a blanket in some sort of small, round room with a low ceiling, a pointy roof by the look of it, and small glassless windows all around. The walls seemed to be made of a rough, brown, paper-like material. She lay curled around... She looked down and smiled. Kniff had curled himself in an even tighter ball than her and lay against her stomach. She saw his knife and the red shred hanging on the walls. He still wore his hat. She figured heavy equipment was needed to separate him from it. 

Jinx recalled the amount of alcohol that´d flowed last night and stood as quietly as possible. Her own head ached, too. 

She crept across the room on her toes. The ceiling was just high enough for her to stand straight. Across from her was a small door, which she opened. 

She hadn´t expected the abyss to be that close. 

In front of her feet lay a thin wooden board, maybe fit to support a light Minion, but for her the abyss might just as well remain uncrossed; glistening dark rock walls in the Netherworld´s halflight, stretching on in the gloom for miles... where a hint of red was visible, probably the heart of the planet itself... 

Yes. She was, indeed, back in the Netherworld. And they´d taken her to the place where the Minions slept. 

The soft creaking came from the wooden beams that´d been rammed into the rock, hung with many small round houses, each with its own link to solid ground. The brown Minions had an entire hanging city to live in when they weren´t raging on the battlefield! 

She was still hesitating at the door of the swinging barrack when she heard soft humming. She knew that voice. And yes, on one of the walking boards Quaver approached, half dancing to the rhythm of his own song. As he saw her and came closer Jinx noticed one of the extensions of his fools´ hat was smouldering. 

"Jinx!" he called out. "Greetings on this fine morning... or afternoon, that´s never certain in here. The red Minions have no appreciation of my company, so I came back here." For a Minion, his voice was surprisingly clear, and he spoke articulately in contrast to the others. Gnarl was the only other one capable of doing it. And to Jinx, the habit of turning everything into small rhymes didn´t seem characteristic for a Minion either. She smiled. "Hi, Quaver. Be quiet, I think we´re in for something when Kniff wakes up." 

Quaver looked past her and inside. "Kniff, eh?" He winked with his good eye and crept around the curled Minion. Next to Kniff´s head he stood up straight. 

"Kniff the Minion, loyal and strong," he started with his composing voice,  
>"Was banished to Nordberg´s icy hills<br>But on wolfback he returned  
>And made a great many Empire kills!" He grabbed Kniff´s shoulder. "Kniff my friend, wake up, the world awaits you. The Netherworld, that is." <p>

Kniff growled and turned. Then his glowing eyes blinked open and he turned back to look at Quaver. "Song? For me?" 

"Yup," Quaver nodded. 

Kniff punched the air and stood up. Jinx was again surprised by the toughness of Minions; he didn´t seem troubled by a hangover like she was. She chuckled. He seemed to take the poem well. 

"Come along, fair lady," Quaver bowed, "I´ll show you the barracks now you´ve got your eyes open." 

Jinx blushed. She thought that the other Minions avoided and bullied Quaver – last night she´d caught the fact he, like Kniff, was sometimes kicked out of the Minion Gates – and she understood why. He really wasn´t like the rest. 

The poet was already standing on the walking board. Jinx followed, but hesitated with one foot on the narrow bridge. Quaver looked back. "Have no fear, Jinx." 

Behind her, Kniff pushed her on the board. "Is alright," he said. "You won´t fall, Jinxie."  
>Jinx looked at him for a second, then back to Quaver. She stepped onto the board. It wobbled and bent slightly, and she breathed in sharply, but the wood held her weight. She quickly but very carefully walked over the other side. She was grateful for the fact their barrack was built so close to the cliff face. There were others hanging lower, with rickety stairs leading to the edge. As she foolishly cast a glance downwards she saw countless brown Minions scurrying about, tiny as insects… <p>

Some eternal seconds balancing above certain death later she reached the other side and sank to the dark, gleaming rock, trembling. "Can´t they make that thing broader or something?" she muttered, her head low and her hair hanging before her eyes. Kniff stood next to her. "Can´t, all wood goes to scaffolding in the Tower. Is being built. Private quarters being decorated and polished for Mistress Kelda…" 

Jinx righted herself. "Kelda! That´s true…" A woman had entered the game, and not any woman. She wanted to meet as soon as possible with this Nordbergian dame, once Sayron´s only friend, then governor Borius´ slave and now a Tower Lady…

…but right now, something else was claiming her attention. 

It was mainly made of fire. There, maybe a hundred meters away from her across the sloping black rock, gigantic lava flows gushed down into a river of molten rock. But that wasn´t nearly all. There was something crowning the sloping terrain, on a base of glowing stone, shaped like a huge beehive. It was black, but a fiery red glow flowed from several openings. It was strangely organic. Jinx, Kniff and Quaver walked towards it, the poet staying his distance eventually. The reason soon became apparent as countless glowing specks emerged from the overall haze of light. This was where the red Minions lived. Above the river of lava hung many stalactites, ablaze with red lights. They lived inside the rock… 

"Our fiery friends are back with us  
>When will the fairies learn?<br>In fighting reds you´ll end up dead  
>And something´s gonna burn!" Quaver called behind them. He laughed as the reds lobbed fireballs at him and then quickly ran off. <p>

Kniff greeted many of the reds. Jinx heard that these Minions had been away for a long time, since the fall of the previous Overlord. They´d gone into the world on their own, but had been tricked by fairies and trapped inside the elven sanctuary. They hadn´t been able to leave it until Sayron had found them. Some of the reds had seen the previous Lord, Vessperion, but most of them had come into this world after his fall. Jinx wondered how, for she hadn´t seen a single female Minion. Then she recalled what Kniff had told her, the night he´d fought the gnomes: Minions were born from life force. And then a red addressed her. 

"Welcome to Red Hive, Jinx!" a voice sounded from above her head. It was higher-pitched than Kniff´s, and slightly hoarse. As Jinx looked up, she saw a small red Minion, hanging from a thin stalactite. His skin was the colour of blood, except where his inner fire shone through. The red´s skin was at its thinnest on his stomach, because there was only white-hot light to be seen, as was the case with this particular Minion. The inside of his arms was glowing as well, and the skin on his back was partly see-though with dark stripes to signal his ribs. His eyes were glittering like sparks. The Minion wore only a loincloth with his pointy tail sticking out, a tail with considerable strength, for it was with his tail he was hanging from the stalactite. 

"Hi," Jinx said, her eyes screwed tightly against the fierce glow the Minion was emanating. "The Hive? What´s that? That thing over there?" She nodded at the black object on the stone base. 

The Minion nodded. "All reds born from it, when there´s enough life force." He gave a flick of his tail and pushed away from the stalactite with his clawed feet. He made a salto and dived into the lava river. A second later he launched himself out again and landed next to Kniff in an explosion of liquid fire. 

The brown Minion backed away. "Cut it out, Parch! Still healing from fireworks, idiot!" But as he took his hands away from his face he was grinning. 

"Don´t fear fire, Kniff!" Parch laughed. "Won´t kill you…" 

"Fire´s almost worse than water," Kniff shivered. "Haven´t got light in my veins like you." 

"You´re agile," Jinx remarked as they walked on. "I can learn from you," she added with a glance back to the browns´ cliff. 

Parch looked up to her and then back to the lava flow. He shrugged, emanating a flash of fire as the inside of his arms became visible. "Is easy." Then he dived down, back into the lava. Jinx bent over and gasped for breath as the heat smacked her in the face. She felt like her eyes were shrivelling up like raisins in their sockets. Directly below her lay the river of fire, and she had to look hard before she saw Parch´s little head with the curling horns sticking up. 

Kniff had backed away. As Jinx looked at him, his expression was one of worry. "Fire isn´t good, Jinxie. Come on…" 

"Not yet," Jinx said. She turned back to the river, fascinated despite herself. Parch was swimming like a fish, with powerful strokes of this clawed hands and feet – even if the reds hated swimming through water as much as the browns. With them, it clearly wasn´t the drowning, but the extinguishing… 

As she watched, Parch jumped straight up, in a fountain of glowing droplets, and grabbed a protruding spike of rock above the river with his feet. From there he seemed to run along the vertical wall – grasping with his hands, feet and tail. He looked back briefly, and his glittering eyes flashed. Then he was gone in a curve of the river. 

Jinx turned back to Kniff. Her eyes were streaming with the heat, but she felt like they were gleaming as well. Parch and his acrobatics did have something.

Sometime later, her eyes weren´t gleaming that bright anymore, because she was told she, Kniff and some other Minions had been tasked with cleaning the throne room. When they stepped off the floating rock she could see why. The entire hall was up in scaffolding and everywhere along the high walls, Minions were busy hacking, polishing and decorating. The entire floor was covered in dust and debris. So brooms were gathered from the lower levels of the Tower and the sweeping could begin. 

It wasn´t such hard work. The trick was gathering as much dust as possible and sweeping it all at once to the exit of the hall, where it could be thrown over the edge into the abyss. Mainly the Minions put their backs into it and soon the floor was almost clean. Most of the Minions had left the hall already. 

During the sweeping, Gnarl had been fixating Jinx with some truly piercing looks from his spot next to the throne. She´d remembered Kniff might have been accepted back by Sayron and the horde, but nothing had been said about her. On the other hand, she wasn´t dead yet, so there was a chance Sayron had hired her back after all. 

The Overlord hadn´t shown himself yet. Jinx assumed he was still up in the private quarters, probably with Kelda. She grinned and stopped sweeping for a moment. Right then, heavy metal footsteps sounded from above the throne, were the entrance to the private quarters was situated. Lord Sayron was coming down. 

Gnarl turned towards his Master as he approached the throne. "Lord," he bowed. "It´s good to see you again. There are matters requiring your attention in Nordberg." 

Sayron lowered himself onto the throne and laid a hand around the grip of his axe, which had been resting against it. "Bring it on." 

"Let him in!" the elder Minion called out. The slowly revolving crown of spikes on the ceiling opened and a tiny figure floated down into the blue light. "This one´s got information for you, Sire," Gnarl muttered to the Overlord. "I thought it would be wise to not kill him on sight." With those words, his yellow eyes flashed in Jinx´ direction, still busy sweeping a corner of the hall. Jinx caught his gaze and Gnarl´s eyes narrowed. She quickly turned away and continued sweeping furiously. 

The Nordbergian man completed his descent and landed on the throne room floor. He nearly collapsed onto his knees, shaking like it was the devil himself he was standing in front of. After the events of the previous night in his city, that wasn´t strange nor far from the truth. 

"Begging you pardon, Dark Lord," he trembled, "but there are some troublemakers in Nordberg…" 

Sayron rose on the throne. His eyes seemed to ignite. "Rebels? What, with the Minions that have been sent?" 

The man shrunk visibly. "Yes, my Lord. They´ve stolen food supplies and are planning to sail out of Nordhaven in one of our… I mean _your_ ships." 

Gnarl bent over to Sayron. Jinx strained her ears to make out his voice. "This is useful, Sire. That ship´s our ticket out of Nordberg." 

"Out of Nordberg?" Sayron muttered with one eye on the Nordbergian. He was standing slightly taller now, clearly with the growing hope this was going the right way for him. 

"Yes, Sire. We have to find the missing Minion clans before we´re able to deal with the Empire. I have well-grounded suspicions the green Minions are hiding out on an island far offshore." 

The Overlord´s eyes started glowing slightly brighter. He turned back from his advisor. "Thank you for this information." 

The Nordbergian nearly fainted with relief. A broad grin spread across his face. "You´re welcome, Lord!" Then, with the adrenalin making his tongue slightly too loose: "You wouldn´t be able to lend me Mistress Kelda, would you? The nights in Nordberg are very cold and lonely, you know…" 

This time, Sayron´s eyes shot from orange to a bloody red. He rose from the throne. The Nordbergian realized what his flapping mouth had made him say and his grin melted away.

"No! No, I didn´t mean that! Lord, forgive me!" 

Sayron didn´t answer, but gave a flick of his arm. The jewel in his gauntlet traced a lighting trail through the air and the floor beneath the Nordbergian´s feet opened. The man fell screaming through the lower regions and on to the heart of the planet. 

Jinx grinned and swept on. She heard Gnarl chuckling. "He asked for that. But it seems wise to me to intercept that ship as fast as possible, Sire. If only because it´s your property and those thieves´ll have to learn who´s boss in Nordberg now.." 

"I´m going immediately, Gnarl, be sure of that," she heard Sayron say. Heavy metal footsteps moved to the heart of the hall, where the floor had closed by now. 

Jinx knew what was coming and didn´t turn to look. She was right; the bright blue light filled the entire hall, not a moment later. 

She swept the last of the dust and debris along the walls of the throne room to the precipice outside and leant on her tool there. So there were new lands to be discovered. She cast a glance over her shoulder into the hall and then nonchalantly walked back. In the middle of it, the mist pool had reappeared and she could see Sayron arriving in the snowy city where they´d departed the previous night, at the Tower Gate in the square. He called the Minions from their gates. Jinx recognized Stripe, and Rasp… and then a small Minion wearing a tuque hat tumbled from the golden light. 

Kniff was in. 

Well, then so was she. 

She looked up to the revolving black crown. She´d be needing magic to trigger the thing. She glanced at Gnarl; he had all his attention at the mist pool, but she still hid behind a pillar before stretching out a hand and thinking of how it felt to touch life force. 

It was surprisingly easy.

Gnarl, Master of Minions and advisor to countless Overlords, jolted and looked up from the pool as he heard the crack of lightning. He saw a single blue bolt disattach itself from the light of the portal above him and dart to a dark corner on the left side of the hall. For the briefest moment, the corner lit up and he could see the silhouette of a girl in seal fur with a raised arm… 

Then the lightning struck and she was gone. A broom was still left clattering to the floor.  
>In the mist pool, Jinx staggered out of the Tower Gate and after Sayron.<p>

Despite her better clothing and the fact she now knew where she was heading, the cold still resembled a blow with a sledgehammer to Jinx. A shiver ran through her entire body and she closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, she could take in her environment better. 

Sayron and the Minions were nowhere to be seen, but their tracks were fresh in the snow. So she ignored the startled Nordbergians, who´d thought the unexplainable events from the Tower Gate had ceased already, and followed the tracks, across the square, to the outskirts of the city and beyond, back into the snowy wilderness. It felt strange to be back, so soon after last time, and above all, alone… 

Then suddenly the wind changed direction and she realized these hills weren´t the same as last time. This wind had a salty smell to it. Jinx had never seen the ocean in her life, but she was pretty sure she was close now. 

She continued following the tracks until she stood on top of one of the last hills, looking out over an enormous mass of ice. After a few seconds she recognized it as a river, frozen solid. The tracks were leading her downhill and downstream along the river. She followed them, until she had a steep grey rock face to her left. 

She strained her ears and recognized the clash of weapons and rough screaming. She grinned; she was heading the right way. 

Some sweeping curves in the path later, the rock face allowed the path to broaden and Jinx looked upon a chaotic scene. She recognized Sayron – he was high above everything else. Some more staring and she could make out individual Minions. They were at battle with a group of robust seal hunters. It didn´t look like they needed help, because the hunters were mostly on fire or already dying. The horde was too far for her to reach in time, too. Still she sprinted to catch up with them. 

As she´d predicted they fought too fast and as she reached them, Sayron was already wiping his axe on the furs of the last killed hunter. Jinx ran on for a bit, but the Overlord chose that moment to turn around and step in her direction, resulting in the two colliding. 

She backed away and tried her best to make herself smaller. She looked up and saw his eyes, as from immense height, staring back at her like glowing embers from within the darkness of his helmet. At that moment, he was truly fearsome. 

From behind his back, on the height of his waist, two glowing yellow eyes beneath a tuque hat appeared. Kniff seemed very worried, but Jinx knew he wouldn´t help her this time. She tried even harder to shrink away. "Lord…" 

"Gnarl told me you were coming, slave." His voice was like the blow of a whip. Jinx knew he´d have spoken to the uncouth Nordbergian like that, if he´d chosen to waste words on him. "You´re disobedient, girl…" 

"You didn´t give me an order to stay behind," she flapped out. Sayron´s eyes widened slightly. He wanted to reply, but Jinx was too fast for him. "I helped you at the Nordberg siege, I have just as much right to be here as Stripe, Rasp or Gloob… or Kniff." 

"You´re rambling, wench," Gnarl snapped from the empty air. "Head back to the Netherworld and we´ll see which one of your limbs stays attached to your body." 

"No," Jinx stubbornly maintained, surprising even herself. "None of you can make me. I´ll fight for you like a Minion." 

Sayron growled and laid his axe over his shoulder. "Don´t talk nonsense. You´re not a Minion. I can´t just…" 

At that moment, another voice sliced through the air; a cool, impudent voice. "Let her stay if she wants to. Don´t deny her the pleasure of hunting." 

"Kelda?" 

"Don´t be an idiot, Sayron. She fought well yesterday, and she´s still awake to do it again." Gnarl made a short sound, but Kelda must have elbowed him away from the mist pool, because she went on without being interrupted. "You can use all the help you can get. Or is it because she´s a woman? In that case you can just tell me, you know." With these words, her voice sounded as innocent as a purring cat – for a given value of sabre-toothed tiger. 

Sayron remained silent. His eyes had cooled to an uneasy yellow. The yellow eyes behind his back narrowed with silent joy. 

The Overlord didn´t hold Jinx back in any way as she walked around him and took her place in the horde next to Kniff.

Kelda nodded, satisfied, and exchanged glances with Gnarl. The elder Minion didn´t dare to use his witty remarks against her. 

The ginger-haired woman turned away from the pool and returned to the private quarters, humming. She still had to free some spots for her hunting trophies. 

Back at the pool, Gnarl sighed wearily. A moment later however, he shrugged and his ears rose again; there was profit to be made everywhere and maybe he could even work with this girl – however it would be difficult to get a solid grip on her…

Her spot in the horde was at the back, as was Kniff´s. A lot of the Minions had much better weapons and armour than them, especially Stripe who was at the front with Sayron.  
>Luckily, she´d been able to get to know many of the horde Minions last night, and now she knew names and faces: sturdy Gloob with the ragged ears and bone mace, nervous Nails with his long spear, skeptical Rasp, surprisingly rational for a Minion. The horde welcomed her quite warmly, but Kniff tapped her on the shoulder as they went on along the river. <p>

"Back in Netherworld, you´ll have to fight," he warned. "You´re part of the horde now but your spot not clear." 

Jinx looked at him. Something strange was gleaming in his yellow eyes. "You didn´t have to fight them," she remarked. 

"They know my spot," he answered. "You have to show how strong you are, so first fight weak Minions, Jinxie…" 

Her eyes widened as she understood what he meant. She and Kniff were both at the back of the horde. He was the weakest of the battle Minions at the moment. She´d have to fight him first. "Oh, Kniff…" 

"He´s here!" a voice rang out in the freezing air. Jinx jolted and looked up. A small group of men was running away from them. "Let´s get out of here!" she could make out. 

"They´re the ship thieves!" Jinx shouted. "After them!" 

It wasn´t necessary that she said it. Sayron quickened his pace to intercept the men, and the Minions also hurried forward, faster than their Master could. Jinx also knew what was expected of her. Maybe, if she proved herself, she didn´t have to fight her friend… 

The Nordbergians were fast, however, and none of the horde members managed to make their head start any smaller. Further bad luck included the fact that, in a curve in the rock face, some wooden platforms were attached, a group of seal hunters standing on them. Jinx stopped running just in time and dragged Nails away, just at the moment a huge spear came sailing through the air and buried itself in the frozen ground, inches from their feet. The Minion stared at it for a moment, tense like a bowstring and with his own spear gripped tightly in his claw, while they backed away together. Jinx patted his shoulder.

"Careful, Nails. Look first, barge in later, okay?" She looked up to the hunters. They seemed to have some kind of deal with the ship thieves. This was going to be tricky – the hunters knew every corner of this land. 

Sayron caught up with them. Jinx looked back and grinned. The Overlord had raised a hand and his entire arm was crackling with blue lightning. 

"Any last words?" he shouted up to them. The hunters growled from behind their protective masks, which let only their dark eyes and rough eyebrows remain visible. The lightning flashed, but stayed at the Overlord´s arm. "Speak up! Or die!" 

"The proud people of Kiret will never bow to you, demon from the bowels of the earth," one of the hunters called back with a heavy accent. "We will stop you! If you kill us there are so many others!" 

Sayron let loose his lightning. As it hit the hunters, they jolted, their eyes lit up as the deadly energy burst out of them, and they slumped forwards, dead like bricks. Sayron lowered his arm and walked on. "So much for you," he muttered. 

Then, the trees next to the river started thinning and the Overlord stopped walking. Jinx came next to him and saw why. 

"That´s got to be the ship," Gnarl spoke thoughtfully as he let his gaze wander across the river, through the eyes of his Master. Indeed, on the other side of the broad stream lay a wooden ship with a single mast, large white sails, an ivory-imbued bow and eight strong oars. Also, there was so much food on board that it wasn´t merely stacked in the hold, but tied on top of the deck, too. It seemed seaworthy. Still, there was one small downside, and Gnarl didn´t hesitate to attend them to the obvious. "Pity it´s frozen in the ice." 

Sayron stood and looked for a moment. "That can never be thick," he said with a glance upstream. There, the ice was cracked, and even further up the river the water was even flowing, though it swept along ice flows. "I won´t be able to stand on it, and even if the Minions can, the ship can´t sail…" 

"…So we need to get to the other side," Gnarl concluded cheerfully. 

"Yeah, and melt the entire river while we´re at it," Jinx snapped. Sayron gave her a stern look. She shrugged. "It´s not like we can sail away like this…" 

"We´ll see when we get there," Gnarl parried. "There´s a rock bridge over the river, so we´ll get to the ship either way. If we have to we´ll get dynamite from the quarry and blow the ice away with that." 

"Ah," Jinx muttered. "That´s another way, yep." 

"Subtlety is a waste of time, girl," the elder Minion spoke, amused. "World domination won´t just come to you." 

"I´ve noticed, dammit," Jinx swore as she saw a new group of hunters stepping onto the trail ahead to block their way. These had mean-looking spiked maces, next to the spears. She looked at Gloob; it was clear where he´d got his mace. 

The Minion tightened his grip on the weapon and ran forward with a battle cry, as did the rest of his horde. Jinx followed as part of the horde. 

Fighting the seal hunters turned out to be harder than fighting Empire soldiers, and not just because they didn´t have the help of the wolves this time. The hunters were bigger and more powerfully built than the soldiers, and most of all used to the Nordberg lifestyle. Jinx knew many of the soldiers´d been sick, not having anything near the right equipment. 

All that didn´t mean it didn´t shock her when suddenly, in the middle of a jab with her dagger, a spear was stuck deep in her left arm. On the contrary, she gasped for breath with pain. Shockingly red blood streamed across her white furs, and all she could do was stare. She gave a short scream as something pulled the spear from her arm and stabbed her attacker in the chest with it. It was Stripe. The large Minion turned around and jammed the spear in the snow before her feet, but she didn´t pick it up. She clutched the wound with her good hand and staggered backwards a few paces while the horde raged before her eyes. 

A few heartbeats later it was over. The hunter who´d attacked her had done so blindly, because five Minions had been on his back by then, hacking and stabbing. Few Minions were wounded and none were killed, and Jinx´ wound wasn´t life-threatening either, but still the girl was swaying on her feet. 

Sayron came standing next to her and gripped her good shoulder. "This is exactly what I mean. You´re not a Minion." 

She looked up at him, while the blood was still streaming between her fingers and she started to feel lightheaded. However, the pain kept her head clear to some extent. "Let go of me. I…" She made a grasping motion towards the bloodied spear still sticking out of the ground, a few meters away. Sayron didn´t let go, and it was a good thing. 

"You don´t heal as quickly as they do. You´re not as tough as them. I believe you´re brave, but you´re fragile. You´re not cut out for the battlefield." 

Kniff came to her, tearing at his shred of cloak. He tore off a piece and tied it tightly around her arm. Jinx bit her teeth as the pain got worse, but then she started losing much of the feeling in her arm and the bleeding lessened. The cold helped, too. She gratefully nodded to her friend and shook off Sayron´s hand. 

Stripe looked at her with an unfathomable expression on his face while she staggered towards the spear and pulled it from the snow. Then she turned, a shaky smile on her lips.

"Guys, we can move forward." 

Sayron took a step in her direction. "What did I just tell you…" 

"No, we can move forward," Jinx interrupted. "To the ship. Smell that air." 

Despite himself, the Overlord did so. There was a strange smell indeed – sharp and unpleasant. "Is that…" 

"Tar," Jinx grinned. She exchanged glances with one of the reds; one with large, ridged horns whom she knew was the leader of his clan at the moment. "And Hoarse… that´s very flammable."

After the next row of trees, Jinx was proven right. Their path lead them along a large depression in the landscape, next to the river and filled to the brim with gleaming black tar. That happened often in Nordberg. It was in the ground, and in some places it spontaneously came up. Jinx had heard of remains of prehistoric animals being found in it, and scientists had much interest in these pits, but this specific pit wouldn´t be examined. This specific pit would be set aflame. With a little luck, the heat would be sufficient to melt this part of the river, and if there were more close by… Who knew, maybe there even was enough tar to clear the way for the ship. 

Gnarl sighed with glee. "This might just be better than dynamite. This is great. Sire, I have to confess I can barely wait until you let loose your reds." 

Sayron chuckled. "Alright then. Back off, everyone who isn´t fireproof." 

The browns and Jinx stepped back, together with Sayron himself. The group of reds however stayed where they were and even approached the edge of the pit. They raised their arms and started forming fireballs. 

One spark turned out to be all that was needed to transform the entire landscape in front of them into a screaming sea of fire. Jinx shielded her eyes and stepped back so fast she nearly tripped as the heat engulfed her. It felt like being back in the Netherworld, at the edge of the lava flow – she felt the skin on her face grow dry. 

The fire raged like a hundred demons, its roars and shrieks resembling a hurricane. The trees along the trail caught fire and split open with deafening cracks as their frozen juice thawed too quickly. Splinters of wood flew all around them like projectiles. 

Then the hissing started. Jinx looked to her right, to the river. As she watched, the hisses changed to bangs, and large cracks flew across the white surface. Loose ice flows started swaying as the ice lost its grip. The cracks slowed soon, however, and they didn´t reach the ship nor the rest of the river. This method worked, but they´d need a couple more pits before they´d be able to leave Nordberg… 

Sayron and the horde hurried along the trail and further into the hills, their arms raised to protect themselves against the heat. The hot, rising air pursued them for some time, but eventually they outran it and were able to turn around. A gigantic column of smoke was rising to the ashen white sky. The effect was quite something. 

"Very well then," Sayron panted while the smoke started to catch up with them. "Find us another couple of tar pits if you like."

Their trail gradually took them in the direction of the natural bridge Gnarl had spotted, and none of them could sense any tar at their side of the river, so they followed the rock formation to the other side. They´d achieved one of their goals – they´d reached the shore where the ship was docked. They hadn´t confronted any hunters, but as they descended the snow-covered rocks it became apparent why. A wall of spears was waiting for them, a small village not far behind them. 

Right in the middle of the hunters´ village stood a large totem, draped in wolf skins with the heads still on them. The mood in the horde swung round like a leaf in the wind. 

"Not just helpers of ship thieves…" 

"…but also murderers of wolfies!" 

"Only path is through village," grinned Stripe. "Follow!" He raised his sword above his head and ran at the hunters. 

Jinx hesitated. She couldn´t use her arm – it was stiff with pain and cold – and she didn´t want to get wounded again. She hated not being able to join them, but… 

She sniffed. She smelled tar… 

"Lord Sayron," she began, but the Overlord was looking about him as well, searching for another pit filled with the sticky black substance. He gestured. "In the village." 

"That´s possible, they use it to make their boats –" 

"Airtight, yes." Sayron strode to the entrance to the village – the hunters were reduced to loose limbs and puddles of blood – and looked about him, always ready for an ambush. But it seemed the hunters had run out, or they´d pulled back. 

Behind the huts and igloos was a tar pit indeed, but it was way too far from the river to be of use. Luckily, there was something else as well. Behind the village, a deep channel lead away from the pit. The pit itself was locked with strong wooden hatches, and it was clear the tar´d been moved closer to the village. As they followed the channel, it was revealed to emerge in another, empty pit close to the river. 

"Marvelous," Sayron said. He looked at his horde. "Go and lift the hatch so the tar can flow back." 

Ten or so Minions hurried back to the tar pit. Sayron looked at them for a moment, then turned back to the empty pit. 

Some minutes later, the tar flowed back where it had come from, thick and gloopy. And one magical spark later Sayron and the horde were hurrying away from a second inferno.

Downstream, the river had been melted as well. Ice flows broke off and began their descent to the lower and deeper parts of the river, where the salt of the sea also merged in. The water around the ship was the only still frozen and stubbornly clinging to the shore. Their way was clear…

Hoarse, leader of the red Minions, felt his skin tingle with all the fire in the air. The sky behind them was darkened by smoke. This icy land where his clan´d been trapped for so long was getting more enjoyable by the minute, thanks to the Master.  
>Not only in the air, but also underground he could feel all sorts of things burning. The tar was flaming beneath the snow as well, and the white blanket was melting in many spots already. On his left hand, the ice flows cracked and wailed as they scraped along eachother, melting and dissolving in the warming water. <p>

Hoarse chuckled. His voice had a sizzling undertone, like a muted inferno. His inner fire flashed for a moment and shone right through the skin on his stomach and arms. Yes, he could appreciate this. 

Red Minions normally were a bit nervous. They weren´t as tough as the browns. Once wounded, they didn´t heal as quickly, they were less sturdy and their claws weren´t made to hold weapons. The arcane fire was the only weapon they needed. 

But now it was the brown clan that was nervous. They feared fire as much as they feared water. It was his clan, the reds, who held the advantage in this land where fire sizzled through the air and flames flowed through the soil. 

The black-haired girl seemed nervous, too. Hoarse recalled her name – Jinx. He didn´t quite know what to make of her. She´d fought well the previous night and the Master had accepted her, but he felt fear in her heart. There was something else too, though. There was magic within her, slumbering and hidden, but clearly present. And it seemed like one of the browns had gone to some extent to save her life, instead of leaving her behind or killing her. Not a human like the others. The normal type of human – or elf, or dwarf – was fit only to set alight and cherish the flames. Jinx was different. 

Despite himself, he was disappointed as she backed away from a column of flame suddenly shooting out of the ground to her right, even as half a dozen browns did the same. He caught himself thinking: _One day, she'll walk on…_

Then he continued searching for traces of tar. 

And found them, just before Jinx smelled them.

Birr determinedly gripped his spear and planted his feet apart on the platform behind the town wall. He glanced backwards briefly, at the village of Nordhaven – his village. His, and his kin´s. No crazy dark ruler should dare get the idea of conquering it in his bony head, even if he´d succeeded with Nordberg! 

"How are those explosives coming along?" he called to the men at the river. The part of the river where the ship was docked was unreachable if you were outside the walls – made of huge pointed tree trunks. 

"Not so well," one of them called back. "They´re soaked. That damned idiot Kivner! Leaving them in the snow, the entire night!" 

Birr growled. He´d get his hands on Kivner. If he´d be able to find him, that was. The ginger-haired man – the local fool, quite frankly – was nowhere to be seen. 

But they´d succeed! They would break the ice and sail the ship down the river and to Everlight! The elves there were at least as strong as that armoured lunatic, they´d offer help before it´d be too late… 

Even if it seemed like even the strongest seal hunters of the Kiret tribe had failed to protect Nordhaven and their own villages… 

Birr breathed in deeply. He noticed the cold didn´t bite as deep into his lungs as usual. He knew for certain it´d got something to do with those two enormous plumes of acrid smoke along the river, and the creaking, melting ice. The Overlord was approaching. But before he got to them, they´d be on their way… or would they? 

The tropical island of Everlight hadn´t ever seemed this far away. 

"May the gods curse your wicked soul, Overlord!" he growled. "May the demons drag you to the abyss!" 

His family´d lived in Nordberg. Until last night. They´d burned alive on the rooftops. 

"And may they take Kivner with them!" he shouted. "Where is that halfwit?" 

Then, suddenly, something black appeared between the trees next to the river. It seemed to float at first, but then Birr saw it was a black-haired girl, clad in seal furs which fell away against the snow. She was carrying a bloodied spear in her right hand. Her left shoulder was covered in blood as well, so much in fact it made the cloth tied around her arm seem as red as the cloak of an Empire centurion. 

The girl staggered towards Nordhaven´s gate and looked up. She was pale and her expression was one of pain and exhaustion. Birr instantly felt sorry for her. 

"Permission to enter, please," she called up to him. Her grey eyes pierced his with intense pleading. 

Maybe she´d come across the Overlord and his dogs… maybe she had information? 

In any case, she was wounded. Nordhaven was careful, but not overly so… he couldn´t leave her out until the demons came… 

Birr exchanged glances with the men at the gate. They shrugged. He nodded at them. 

"Thank you, merciful lord," it sounded from outside the walls. 

But instead of grateful, the girl sounded like she had a chuckle. Birr looked back at her – and froze. There, too fast to be able to still keep them out, countless brown and red creatures were running from between the trees. And there – was it a shadow? – something huge… 

The Overlord! 

"Close the gates!" Birr hollered. "Close – umph." 

He looked down. There was a spear sticking out of his chest, just like that. 

Below him, Jinx casually strolled towards the open gate. It felt good to have her hands free again.

Kelda descended the stairs, still humming, and with one nonchalant eye fixating the mist pool. She bent over Gnarl´s stooped shoulder. 

"Told you she´d be useful." 

Gnarl harrumphed, but quietly admitted to himself it was true.

Kniff chuckled and hopped over the half-lowered gate of Nordhaven. "Nice throw, Jinxie!" 

Behind him, the rest of the horde streamed into the village, followed by the huge armoured form of Lord Sayron. Hoarse, the largest red Minion, went at the head of his clan while lobbing fireballs at everything that moved. "Tar!" his voice sizzled. "Smell much tar…" 

It was true; the sharp smell filled the air. There was an enormous tar reservoir close by. 

"Find it!" Sayron roared after them. "Set it aflame and free the river!" 

At that moment, while the Minions spread across the small streets and the screaming, terrified people of Nordhaven, a ginger-haired man ran straight towards Sayron and knelt down. Then he looked up. To the great surprise of the Overlord, he was smiling. 

"Sorry for the fuss, Sire," he said with a nod at the hysterical mob. "People around here are a little allergic to death. Perhaps with a little persuasion they can help you with that river?"

He stuck out a hand. Sayron looked down and saw the man was holding a large stick of dynamite. He could see more in his belt. "With these, we´ll have broken the ice in no time.

My name´s Kivner, at your service, Lord," he added. 

Sayron stared at him for a moment, his gaze travelling from the dynamite to the open, smiling face and back. "Gnarl," he muttered from the corner of his mouth. 

"Clear case of worship, Master," his advisor informed him. "And entirely without a domination spell! This one here will do everything you ask of him, but you won´t defeat the river with one bomber. Brainwash some others if you´re going with this method. But," Gnarl chuckled, "I think Hoarse and the other reds won´t be happy if you do…" 

Sayron grinned darkly within the security of his helmet. "I feel where you´re headed." He walked on and left Kivner behind. The ginger man remained sitting kneeling in the snow for a moment, but then stood up and looked after the Overlord. "I´ll take that as a yes," he said to himself and hurried to the ship with his explosives.

The inhabitants of Nordhaven were putting up little to no resistance. It was more a case of getting past them. For the Minions, that wasn´t too difficult – they were small enough to slip between the running legs – but Jinx was having more trouble. Also because some were mistaking her for something she wasn´t, and trying to drag her along to the relative safety of their homes. She had had to free herself twice already – and it might or might not have been in a violent and pointed fashion – but now a sturdy woman had grabbed her wounded arm and the grip of that giant fist had been developed by years of Nordberg´s tough life. Jinx tried to free herself with all her strength, but the pain and the confusion around her made she couldn´t do much more than be dragged along backwards. 

She could see some Minions, behind her. They were sprinting between the people, whacking and stabbing, and in the reds´ case throwing fire at the houses, the people and the sky itself. 

She buried her heels into the ground. 

"Child, I understand you´re afraid, but why are you making it so difficult?" the woman shouted at her. "Come with me! Out here –" She faltered and screamed as the Minions caught up with them and one of the browns jumped on her back. A rusty dagger flashed across her flabby throat, a gurgling sound escaped from her and Jinx was free. She sighed with relief and rubbed her painful arm. "Rasp!" she laughed. "Thank you." 

Rasp saluted her and then ran on. Jinx turned and looked to see where he was going. 

The running mob thinned. Now she could see what was waiting for them. 

"Ah, dammit." 

Again those seal hunters – an entire flock of them, strengthened by the strongest men from the village. They really seemed to have some sort of agreement with Nordhaven to keep Sayron out. It also was a sign they were headed the right way. The men had a reason to protect the tar pit, for when that one caught fire… 

The first Minions had flung themselves onto the men already, but there were too few of them. The horde had spread through the village too much in search of the tar pit. This way, Rasp and the others didn´t stand a chance. 

But, as she looked harder, she did see a shred of a gleaming black surface between the gathered men. 

Jinx turned around and ran away. 

"Lord Sayron…!"

The Overlord in question was having a bit more trouble than Jinx. The people might be terrified of him, but it was still quite difficult for him to find a way through the streets of Nordhaven. He now wished he´d listened to Kivner – he hadn´t had to enter the village at all if he´d just chosen for the dynamite. But then again, you had to be willing to put some effort into it to go into history as the one to commit the darkest deeds, wasn´t it? World domination wouldn´t just come to you, and he didn´t want to be remembered as the one using the villagers to free the ship – the one taking the easy, _gentle_ way. 

On the one hand, he wished he´d listened to Kivner. But on the other, he thought while hacking himself a bloody way through the streets, he really felt in the mood to see Nordhaven burn like no city had ever burned before. 

A voice rang out above the general screaming. It was a familiar one. 

"Lord Sayron!" Jinx shot out from behind a corner, tripped, regained her balance and looked up at him, panting. "We´ve found the tar pit. But it´s being defended by hunters. We´ve got to have the horde together, and you´re needed, too." 

Sayron looked at her for a moment and then raised his red-hot gaze over her head. He could hear the ring of the weapons already, a couple of streets away. 

"_Minions!_" his voice rang out, so loud it was clearly audible above every other noise. "_To me! NOW!_"

Kivner lit his sixth stick of dynamite, lobbed it at the solid mass of ice surrounding the ship and covered his ears. Razor-sharp shards flew up as the explosive went off. The ice showed quite a lot of damage and cracks, but it was too thick and hard to break through it properly. If only he had help. But those fools in that village of his just didn´t realize how wise it´d be to aid the Overlord. 

Kivner snorted. Like it was so smart to run around like beheaded chickens. And, strangest of all, in the end they´d beg for their lives anyway! _After_ they´d resisted as long as they could! What was logical about that? No, if it was up to him, he wouldn´t obey the rulers of Nordhaven nor those of the Empire. He obeyed… no, he _belonged_ to Lord Sayron. 

And Lord Sayron would let him live for that. And he, Kivner, would make sure others would think his way, the survivors of Nordhaven, those of Nordberg and further…

Jinx followed the Overlord as he stomped through the streets towards the tar pit. Along the way, more and more Minions joined them. Stripe was one of the first, mainly because he never took the trouble to go around people but just went through them. Gloob and Scabies made some commotion by running over the heads of the crowd towards their Master, wobbly but surprisingly fast thanks to their three-toed, clawed feet. Smoky and Blister, two reds, jumped off the rooftops where they'd relived the great memory of the previous night – every single straw-decked roof of that street was ablaze. 

After some time, the only ones still missing were the members of the party already in battle – among which were Rasp, Hoarse, Nails and Kniff. And that was only two streets away. Jinx stayed right behind Sayron, who cut through the chaos purposefully like a scythe, and heard the noise grow faint already – the Minions were losing… 

Then, Sayron suddenly stood still. Jinx peered around his broad back. There were the hunters. Two of them were just shaking a dead Minion off their spears, one each. 

Jinx swallowed. It was the first time she saw Minions dying since she'd got to know them. She recognized the impaled duo as Rasp and Nails. Further away, a couple of others was lying, both red and brown. Hoarse and Kniff were still alive and hurried back to them with a small group of others as soon as they saw Sayron. Kniff came standing next to Jinx and she had to restrain herself from picking him up and hugging him to death with relief, despite his expression being one of white-hot hate towards the hunters. 

One of the fur-clad men kicked Nails' dead body. The Minion rolled over. He was still clutching his own spear, just as tightly as when he was still alive. "Back, demon! This land belongs to us, the proud Kiret!" 

"Do you believe it yourselves?" Sayron taunted. "You´re the last. Your people are defeated. Nordberg is mine and so is Nordhaven!" His eyes were flaming blood-red again and the hunters backed away visibly as he slowly and menacingly raised an arm. A jolt went through the line as the blue lightning came to life, crackling and sizzling. 

Then, so suddenly Jinx clasped her hands to her mouth in shock, his arm was beaten down. An arrow, at least one and a half meters long, was sticking out from between Sayron´s metal arm and shoulder piece. Dark blood was rising along the edges of his armour like a macabre tide. The Overlord growled, but left the arrow where it was to prevent further bleeding.  
>Something hissed through the air for a second time. This time, Sayron backed away, faster than one would expect of something his size, and the new arrow smacked in the churned snow without doing any damage. Then he looked up. <p>

At the top of the cliff, directly above them, something he was developing a fierce hate for was visible. A ballista. He stepped back a bit further. 

"The Empire is aiding us even now!" one of the five men controlling the contraption jeered. "Even they´re better than you, demon!" 

Jinx groaned – they needed an Empire legion like they needed a hole in the head – but then she recalled the abandoned ballista at Nordberg´s gates. They probably´d taken that one here and meant nothing more than that. She had to confess it was a smart move. They had no way of reaching the thing. 

She feverishly glanced backwards. The people behind them seemed less hysterical already. Before long they´d lose the fear caused by the chaotic Minions and burning houses, and organize themselves. When that would happen, they´d be in for something. 

They´d have to be quick. And the fastest way to end this… 

Jinx remembered Parch and his acrobatics, earlier that morning. She knelt next to Hoarse. The red Minion´s glittering eyes widened after her first three words.

Sayron stood on the edge to a remarkably rough tirade of swearing as he suddenly saw all of his reds run off without his command. He whirled round. "Hey…!" 

"Forgive me, Lord," Jinx said next to him, with far too little regret in her voice for his liking. "I had an idea." 

"And since when do they listen –" Sayron´s eyes widened. Were those reds running straight up the rock face or were his eyes pulling tricks on him? 

"Red Minions are very agile, Lord. Didn´t you know that?" 

Sayron was speechless for a second. "…No." 

Gnarl chimed in. "I didn´t know either, Master. They probably developed it during their imprisonment beneath Nordberg. They never did this earlier." 

But there they were, eight glowing figures rapidly working their way up the cliff with their hands, feet and tails. Thin blankets of snow melted and dripped down where they passed, icicles broke off and fell tinkling to the ground. The eight reds were climbing up on both sides of the ballista, at a safe distance from the swords and spears of the five men controlling it, but close enough for the contraption to be unable to fire at them. The thing remained aimed at Sayron and the rest of the horde anyway, just in case they´d return in range. 

The first of the reds hauled himself over the cliff.

Hoarse pulled himself up in the hissing, melting snow that dripped from his claws as freezing but soon warmer water. He righted himself on top of the rock wall and looked at the ballista. The _wooden_ ballista. The red grinned from ear to ear. Pity he'd have to hold back.  
>He waited for his seven brothers to pull themselves up and then raised his claw to form his fireball. "Remember!" he shouted to the reds on the other side of the ballista. "Just men!" <p>

The men were very nervous, he could sense it. But their leader, he was good. "Stay where you are, lads," he heard him say. "If we draw back the Kiret won´t stand a chance against that lunatic." 

Hoarse gnashed his teeth. "_Throw!_" he shouted. He lobbed his fire to the men himself, aiming for their leader. No one insulted the Master! 

The snow-covered furs the men were wearing took some time to catch fire, but eventually the first flames sprung to life. By that time, they'd obviously left their stations. The five of them jumped off the ballista screaming, and ran off over the cliff, while three reds ran after them in, quite literally, a hot pursuit. 

Hoarse nodded towards the four others that'd remained with him. With a grin just a bit wider, the top of his head would have slid off. 

The five of them climbed onto the contraption – two for aiming and firing, two for reloading. Hoarse lowered himself into the storage, distastefully careful not to set things alight. He picked up an arrow longer than himself and climbed back up. There he put the arrow into the mechanism. 

But first he tightened his grip for a moment. Sparks shot off his claws and the arrow ignited in wonderful fire along its entire length. 

Then he let go. His four brothers took care of the rest, and the arrow was sent hissing through the air… 

…and towards the humongous tar pit behind Nordhaven. 

"Ah, that's a fine example of evil thinking," Gnarl admitted, making no effort in hiding the glee and pride in his voice for a change.

Kivner wiped the soot off his face and took in the damage he'd dealt to the ice. It was, at least, weakened. He'd been working tirelessly, because he was working for the new ruler.  
>Heavy footfalls crunched through the snow behind him. He turned and his face split in a broad smile. "My Lord! Look what I've already done for…" <p>

He fell silent. His face clouded over while Sayron, the Minions and Jinx ignored him and hurried past him – and he saw what was coming his way with them. 

A column of smoke like it was never seen before in Nordberg was rising from just behind the town. The flames were reaching so high they were visible above the rooftops. Above the rooftops, and _on_ the rooftops, and _between_ the rooftops… 

Then the inferno burst out of the streets on the riverside, the first trees caught fire, Kivner felt an enormous heat and a force picking him up and flinging him away like a ragdoll, and then he felt nothing at all.

At the river's shore, there was nothing that could burn. Still, Sayron held the sparks away from the ship with a shield of very fine lightning. After a while, the reds joined them. Hoarse briefly bowed his head to Jinx. 

Jinx was busy with Kniff for a moment. The brown Minion refused to stop bouncing around. "Genius! Genius, Jinxie!" 

"You've got to know, Kniff, I got the idea because of you and your centurion," she laughed. "Burning arrows… Multifunctional." 

Lord Sayron had called up a small Tower Gate in the meantime, healing himself with the magic supplies in the Netherworld. Then he turned around. "That was a good idea indeed… Jinx." 

It was the first time he called her by her name. Jinx stood up straight and grinned. 

Sayron´s next words didn´t make it through at first. "But you´re not coming with us." 

"…_What?_" 

"Look at yourself," the Overlord spoke. 

Jinx looked down. Despite herself, she breathed in sharply. The blood was trickling down her arm and from the fingers of her left hand, dripping into the snow. The fur on her entire arm was red. The wound was much deeper than she´d thought. As she realized it, the pain suddenly came back and she cringed. She got a strong message from her body: it didn´t want to sail right now. "But…" 

Kniff grabbed her good hand. "Jinxie." His eyes were very serious. Jinx remembered what she´d have to do if she came with them. If she fought now, she´d probably be kicked right out of the horde. 

She frowned, furious with herself, Sayron and the tears she was trying to keep at bay with all her strength. "…Right then," she heard herself say. 

Sayron nodded. Then he turned and stepped onto the broad deck of the ship, the ship she´d fought hard for to claim as well. The Minions followed, all surviving twenty. Sixteen of them went below deck to the eight oars, three climbed into the mast to be lookouts, and one came standing next to Sayron and began signalling the rhythm for the rowers on a leather-spanned drum. 

Jinx stood on the river´s shore and watched the ship glide past, remaining deathly still. 

From the ropes, Kniff looked at her. "Be seeing you, Jinxie," he called to her. He was waving frantically. "Beat them all! Beat me too! Your spot is above me!" 

From the empty air Gnarl sounded, fainter already: "Splice the main thingy! Raise the wossname! Throw out the…" 

"Shut it, Gnarl." 

"…Sorry, Sire." 

And Jinx looked and looked until the ship disappeared into the white fog and there was nothing left to be looking at all.

**Jinx is very cunning isn't she? Pity she can't heal as well as the Minions. Seems Kelda has her back though, females stick together I've found. Anyway please review, all your nice comments will be passed to Sunjinjo, all your bad ones will result in Minions smashing your computers, phones etc. So be kind, thank you.**


	6. Into the Unknown

**Yes my friends the next chapter has arrived. Once again all gratitude for the story goes to Sunjinjo on Deviantart. Does not claim Overlord but does claim the OCs.**

Chapter 5 – Into the Unknown  
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As Jinx descended to the smooth throne room floor she immediately ran over to Gnarl, a stream of swearing flowing from her mouth. "You! You wouldn´t defend me, would you! Now they´re off to that island and I´m left here and they´ll have all kinds of adventures…" 

Gnarl groaned and gripped his ears tightly. Only then did Jinx realize there was someone else yelling at him as well. 

On the other side of the throne, Kelda was standing, and her green eyes nearly glowed with fury. 

"You let him sail away! Without giving him so much as five minutes to attend me to it! One night - _one night_, Gnarl! And now he's gone for the gods know how long…" 

Gnarl silently pulled his ears behind his head and tied them together. Then he turned around and disappeared down a corridor, to descend from there to the lower levels of the Tower. Kelda stared after him for a moment, the utmost surprise merged with her fury.

Then she looked at Jinx. Jinx looked back. 

As if they´d planned it, they fell into each other's arms, crying their eyes out. 

Atop his high harp, his clawed feet dangling in front of the strings and deep in thought about a new composition, Quaver looked up. "Ah, women," he sighed with compassionate incomprehension.

The sea! 

Sayron raised his head, enjoying the freezing wind he knew so well, but still slightly different – he could just smell the adventure. He felt a little bit of regret about leaving Kelda behind like that, but such was his life. He was an Overlord! He was made to experience everything the world could throw at him! 

The eight oars ploughed through the waves and the sail creaked in the wind while the ship took them out of the frosty fjords. Sayron looked back and grinned while beholding the huge plume of black smoke rising from Nordhaven. If things went well, the tar pits would never stop burning again! 

He looked forward again. Everywhere around the ship, ice flows drifted along, but they were already melting thanks to the warmer water the river now poured into the sea.  
>And there was the horizon, just like that. A rare sight around Nordberg, where most of the time it snowed so fiercely you couldn´t see your own nose, and in most other cases you would be in the middle of a forest. But now, there it was, all around him and completely visible. <p>

"Bring me that horizon," Sayron whispered, not sure where he´d heard those words before. He turned the wheel and felt the ship reacting. He grinned and did it again, with more force this time. 

Two seconds later he scrambled back to his feet and decided to be gentler from now on.  
>From the rigging, a Minion´s voice sounded. "Black-white fish!" he called out. "There!" <p>

Minions didn´t see the use of left or right, and they wouldn´t bother with port and starboard either. Sayron followed the pointing claw. Indeed, in the distance a large black and white fin was charging at them… he gripped his axe. 

Half a minute later a gigantic fish-shaped creature jumped from the water, right next to the ship. The killer whale was six meters long, possessed three rows of teeth and had such a thick layer of blubber that even Sayron´s axe wouldn´t have dealt much damage. 

But it didn´t matter. The browns had already recognized the twinkle in the eyes of the largest predator of the polar seas, and the five others of its kin swimming in from open sea, attracted by the promise of blood and dark magic possessed that twinkle as well. 

They already had found friends with the wolves of the sea. 

"Baby seals, here we come," Sayron grinned.

Balance was both of great importance and extremely difficult. She wished she´d brought one of the Minions along. 

But Jinx was part of the Netherworld now, so she could control the floating rock by herself. And as neither Kelda nor Gnarl had wanted to come along – both busy treating wounds of their own – she indeed had to do it by herself. 

"I´d see Mortis with that," Kelda´d said as she wiped away her tears and nodded to Jinx´ arm. "I always let that sort of thing heal on its own, but it´s useless to walk around with it while there´s a healer close by." 

And so she was on her way to where it´d all started: Mortis´ corner of the Netherworld, next to the subterranean river. 

Eventually, after a great deal of wobbly trouble, she managed to dock the rock at the spot she´d departed in the Minion´s clutches a few days earlier, jumping off as soon as she could just in case it´d depart again immediately. It didn´t. 

She stared at it, with the faint feeling the rock was staring back at her. "Oh, so now you´re suddenly cooperating, eh?" She sighed and turned. Ranting to herself she stomped through the confusing labyrinth of plateaus and hanging bridges to where she thought the river was.  
>The weird thing was, her wound didn´t hurt anymore. She´d expected the pain to grow worse as her arm warmed and she regained her feeling, but instead it just was a faint pounding. <p>

Still, she was reluctant to untie the cloth to see where all the blood was coming from.  
>After some time floating around amidst Minions she didn´t know – all familiar faces were away with Sayron – she was suddenly looking out over the river, foaming and roaring like she´d just been pulled out again. Right next to the stream, a large stalagmite rose to a height of nearly twenty meters, the base sporting a small door. Also, there was a stone well nearby. Jinx wondered why, because you could just get water from the river, wasn´t it? With a bucket on a very strong rope, that was. <p>

She uncertainly approached the door, bent over and knocked. 

After a moment or two she heard a complaining voice with a familiar gurgling undertone. A while after that, Mortis opened. 

Jinx had become used to browns and reds by now, and she jolted slightly at seeing the blue Minion again. Mortis was very different from the rest. His head seemed larger and rounder, and his webbed ears continued all the way down to his chin. His hands and feet were webbed as well, and a strong tail protruded from his cloak. 

"Yes?" he said, looking at her near-sightedly with round frog´s eyes. "What more do you want of me, air-breather?" 

"Uh. I´d like you to heal this, please," Jinx said, slightly baffled and very aware of being polite to a Minion. She outstretched her arm. 

"I need bare skin," Mortis said. 

Jinx grimaced and reluctantly began winding the fabrics off her arm. She untied Kniff´s shred of cloak and carefully put the bloodied cloth in her pocket. Then she took off her vest and pulled the sleeve from her arm. 

The wound had healed. 

Jinx stared at it for a while. "Wow! That´s amazing, Mortis! Thank you!" 

Mortis expressionlessly looked at her arm for a moment, his webbed hand raised like he was about to place it where the wound had been. Then he nodded silently. He was about to disappear inside his stalagmite again, but Jinx stopped him. "Wait a minute. I heard you healed my broken leg when I –" 

Mortis turned back. A joyless smile stretched his rubbery face. "Oh, more than that. You were dead when I fished you from the water, air-breather. The river had taken your life." 

Jinx froze. She stared into Mortis´ glassy eyes, not sure if she´d understood his words. 

"Do not be so surprised. We blues are not just healers. Mainly I am more of a resurrected." Mortis clicked his fingers, and there, in a whirl of blue sparks, was a collection of small bones. "That is my task here in the Netherworld. When fighters fall and the Master wishes to have their skill and experience back, I can take care of that." 

The thought of Rasp and Nails battled her confusion and shock with the recent revelation. Dead? Her? 

"_Only_ when the Master wishes so," Mortis added as if he´d read her mind. He chuckled. "Do not have any illusions about that, air-breather. To the Netherworld, you are barely a Minion."

"_You´re not a Minion._" 

Jinx excitedly ran beneath the spiky crown towards the throne. Oh, if only Gnarl had some experience with knots… 

It had all started that morning as she – after having conquered her fear and walked from her barrack to solid rock across the narrow bridge – ran into Parch and started ranting to him about how unfair it all was. The red Minion was one of the few familiar faces still present in the Netherworld, and he´d been a welcome listener. Jinx had lowered herself against a boulder and had complained: "What do Minions have what I haven´t, Parch?" 

And then she´d remembered. 

"_You´re not a Minion. You don´t heal as quickly as they do. You´re not as tough as them. I believe you´re brave, but you´re fragile. You´re not cut out for the battlefield._" 

"…Oh… we´ll see about that," she´d muttered softly. Then she´d looked up into Parch´s glittering eyes. 

"Teach me to climb like you do, Parch." 

And so now she was running through the throne room towards Gnarl´s chosen spot with a long rope trailing behind her. She had gone to see Mortis about it first, but he´d looked at her and said: "I tie ropes for my nets in a way they´ll never come loose again. Do you really want that for your purpose?" 

And then there remained only one. 

She ran past the mist pool – a quick glance told her Sayron was standing at the helm alone, on a calm ocean – and stopped next to Gnarl. She fumbled with her rope. 

The elder Minion didn´t react to her, but he did so in a very conscious way. He continued studying the huge sea chart he´d unrolled next to him. 

"Please, Gnarl." 

He stubbornly continued staring at the chart. 

"I need some advice. You´re the only one in this Tower capable of helping me right now." 

"Oh, all of a sudden?" 

"Yes!" 

"Hmm." Gnarl turned to face her. "With what, may I ask?" 

Jinx stuck out the rope to him. "I´d really like to have a knot with which I´ll get some kind of lasso." 

"And why do you think I could have knowledge of such a thing?" 

Jinx silently nodded towards the mist pool. Sayron hadn´t sailed before, but he didn´t seem to have any kind of trouble. "You´re the only one capable of helping him with his ropes." She bent over the surface of the pool. "Isn´t that right, Lord?" 

Sayron looked up. "What?" 

"Nothing, nothing," Gnarl quickly called out. "Oh, all right! Yes, I know about knots, that´s what you get if you have to rebuild the entire tower every time a new Overlord arrives. Every single time the previous one departs the entire domain gets wrecked, which is one of the reasons the Netherworld is hidden so well." 

"I got in," Jinx remarked. 

"Yes, and that might just be a greater disaster than all Seven Heroes put together," Gnarl snapped while yanking the rope from her hands. "A square knot it is." His long fingers danced around the rope in intricate manoeuvres, seemingly going right through each other several times over. Eventually, he handed it back. A strong loop had been formed. "Try this one on anything protruding. It´ll close like a bear trap." 

Jinx looked about her. Her gaze lingered on a spot on the ceiling. That didn´t mean her eyes remained still. 

Gnarl followed her gaze. He opened his mouth to discourage her, but shut it again, with a hint of a sly smile. 

Jinx whirled the rope above her head and towards her goal. The square knot got yanked shut, the rope tightened and Jinx was lifted off the ground. She yelped with surprise, but then let herself be dragged along, dangling from one of the spikes of the crown portal, laughing like an idiot. The knot was strong enough to hold her weight, and to keep holding it. 

"Gnarl! Aren´t you exaggerating a bit with the strength of this thing?" 

"Not for the purpose I think you have in mind with it," the advisor answered.

The seas were no longer calm, but that was their own fault. 

Hoarse chuckled while dropping another fireball from his fist into the gaping hole beneath him. A gust of humid, salty air rushed up and he backed away for a moment, but he knew the enormous beast wouldn´t harm him. 

Then he looked back, towards the ship which seemed so small, tied to the gigantic aspidochelone like that. 

The turtle had managed to lure many preys by acting like an island, but Sayron had seen through its disguise even before coming ashore. The seas had been warming up the last couple of weeks and the killer whales had left them days ago, but Everlight wasn´t supposed to appear on the horizon yet. The Master had known perfectly well this was no real island. They´d overpowered the sea monster and tied the ship with a great lot of rope to a spike on its shield. And to be sure the beast kept going with a good speed and in the right direction, Sayron had put him, Hoarse, and some other reds on the head… at the nostrils. 

Who needed a fair wind when being an Overlord?

"_You don´t heal as quickly as they do._" 

Oh, what fun it´d be if she was right. 

Jinx stretched in the entrance to her barrack, with an experienced movement threw her right rope around the short pole she´d hammered in the rock on the other side of the bridge, pulled tight and let herself fly. In the air, she threw out her left rope around a protrusion in the rock face, and with both ropes pulled tight she walked right up the vertical wall and pulled herself up. She´d left her barrack this way every morning for the past few weeks, and every morning she got better. 

Once on solid rock, she sprinted to the first bridge in the direction of the river, grabbed both poles on the other side with her ropes and flew across the bridge with her stomach inches from the rough wood. She landed crouched on her feet. And grinned. 

She was faster than Nails had been. And she got faster every day. 

She walked the rest of the way, her ropes slung around her shoulders. If she didn´t, she had the risk of accidentally hanging Minions or knocking them unconscious. Her horde members greeted her as she passed, and she greeted them back, occasionally head butting them or trying to scythe their legs away. Jinx was completely integrated into the Netherworld. 

As she reached the river, Mortis was already outside, busy stirring the water with a long stick. As she approached him he turned holding a net full of big-eyed, exceptionally slimy fish. Jinx wasn´t disgusted in any way – she knew the fish looked far tastier when roasted, and they were. As were carcass rats and mushrooms, by the way. Those wusses up in the outside world were completely wrong on them, especially those of the Empire with their quails and stuffed dormice, yuck! 

"Climber," Mortis greeted her. He still didn´t call her by her name, but he did with no one and this was better than ´air-breather´, which Jinx suspected to be an insult. "What brings you to the Well? Convinced you can command me today?" 

"No, Mortis," Jinx answered. She sighed. She´d given up trying to get him to resurrect Rasp, Nails and the others. She´d seen her dead horde members, floating around inside the Well. It wasn´t to bring up water, but souls. Sometimes one of them came up and floated around on the air. Jinx always found it eerie and unpleasant to see the lively Minions like this, deaf and blind to the world and just as solid as mist. 

Mortis, however, only obeyed Sayron. Only when he got back, so would the dead Minions. Jinx had some talking to do to the Overlord when he got back. 

She looked the resurrected in the round frog´s eyes. "I think you´ve been hiding something from me." 

"Ah." Mortis averted his eyes for a moment. "That." 

"So…?" 

"I wanted to heal you, the day you got back from Nordhaven. I had the magic at the ready. But you were already healed. You had done it yourself." 

"You´re kidding me." Jinx grinned broadly and pulled her dagger from her belt. "I only needed your confirmation. So if I just concentrate hard enough, and I did with the last wound, it was the very reason I´m stuck here…" She pulled the knife across her arm. Her grin didn´t falter, though it did stiffen a bit as she clenched her teeth. Blood came rising and the drops traced red trails down her arm. She continued staring at the cut intently.  
>The drops reached the underside of her arm, but they didn´t fall off. The stream had stopped. <p>

Then, the edges of the cut pulled together a bit. The wound still hurt and certainly wasn´t healed, but it had faded a little – maybe the result of two or three days in wrapping. 

Jinx was ashen, but still grinning. 

"Exceptional, Climber," Mortis said. "Exceptional." 

Jinx turned and raised a hand. "I´m going to be _good_ at this, Swimmer!"

The being dragged along by the aspidochelone had only lasted a few days, what with the Minions falling off and the incredible seasickness. The beast had done exactly what was wanted of it – it had been swimming fast. Sayron kept telling himself that was the only reason the turtle had come out of it alive. 

Now, the Overlord wished the rope at the bow was still pulled taut. Something had appeared on the horizon and it interested him greatly. 

It was a red sail with a golden sun on it. The emblem that´d been fluttering all over Nordberg for the past thirteen years… the emblem he hated. Emperor Solarius´ banner.  
>There, on their heading, was a huge Empire galleon, apparently on its way to Everlight just like them. <p>

They´d been sailing for three weeks now, and the seas had become warmer. The Minions – aquaphobes at heart, every single one of them – actually dared letting their feet dangle in the water now and then, when they´d been relieved of rowing duty. The furious storms of Nordhaven had made way for trustworthy winds they could catch with the sails, so rowing was of diminishing importance as well. Sayron hadn´t known what was happening to him the first few days, being born and bred in Nordberg. But by now he´d become used to it and the life at sea was pretty much routine. He still missed Kelda, but they spoke over the mist pool. Gnarl made sure he kept the right course with the help of his sea charts, the people of Nordhaven had involuntarily supplied them with enough food to keep them going for months and even without the turtle they held a steady speed with sail and oar. 

Even enough to eventually catch up with the galleon. He hoped. 

Sayron tightened the grip on both the wheel and his axe. He _wanted_ to catch up with that ship. 

He turned to a Minion in the rigging behind him and recognized Kniff, the rebel with the tuque hat. He´d started to like that Minion. "Kniff, tell the Minions below that Stripe´s to take the two front oars with another Minion on each of them, okay? And have Stripe direct the pace from now on." 

"Yea, Master," Kniff nodded and let himself fall directly below deck. A short while later Sayron could just feel the slight acceleration. He also heard Stripe's rasping voice yell directions concerning the pace. Long ago, the Overlord had discovered it was very useful to let the Minions, in fact, be commanded by Minions. Of course, they listened to and obeyed his every word, but Minion leaders really spoke their language. So he let Stripe direct the pace, instead of using the drum – which was probably introduced on the Nordbergian ships by the Empire. 

Ah, yes. Now they started catching up with the red-sailed ship. 

Half an hour later the galleon lay right in front of their noses, and dozens of glistening spears were pretty much stuck _up_ their noses. The ship was well defended, something Sayron had been expecting. He calmly let his gaze travel along the length of the ship. It was defended, but not as well as it should have been. The Empire'd grown lazy, not counting on risks anymore. Such powers were just asking to be overthrown. 

"W-who are you and what are your intentions?" their leader called at him, clearly startled by Sayron's appearance, and that of his Minions. It was a skinny man with a red-plumed helmet and a sunburned face. He was casting nervous glances at Stripe, who was just coming on deck and gave him a big grin with lots of teeth while righting his own helmet. "Identify yourself!" 

Of course. Maybe Marius had made it out of Nordberg, but these men had been out at sea before anyone had ever heard of him. Sayron laid an armoured hand on the rail of his own ship. "My name is Lord Sayron of the Netherworld," he spoke without raising his voice – it wasn't necessary for him. "And I'm here to bring the Empire a message." 

"What kind of message?" the commander called back. 

"This message," Sayron said calmly, and flicked his wrist at the galleon. The jewel traced a lighting trail through the clear ocean air, the Minions cheered with joy and a wave of chaos jumped over between the ships.

The soldiers who'd been sent to defend this galleon hadn't expected to actually need their weapons. The sea routes to Everlight were safe and free of pirates. Everlight was a sanctuary, not a trading harbour. The route trailed between the reefs, so even the large sea monsters were no threat. They'd considered themselves lucky to escape from the heavy training the centurions were putting them through, back at the Empire – during this voyage they'd done little more than fishing and sunbathing. 

And now, suddenly, this. 

The Minions were in top shape. No longer troubled by the extra clothing they'd needed around Nordberg, strong thanks to the continuous rowing and enthusiastic because of the first fight in weeks they threw themselves onto the galleon with the force of a tsunami. They might not have the help of the wolves, but that didn't diminish their spirit. Several reds flung themselves into the rigging and aimed for the soldiers from there, often throwing several fireballs at once. Stripe had gathered himself a private pile of bodies and threatened the bravest men from atop it. 

As with all things fun, this fight was over way too soon. There simply weren't enough soldiers. The Empire had truly become lazy. 

Now that the screaming and the clash of battle had died down, Sayron could hear another sound. He grinned. He liked that sound. It was the sound of people in terror. He turned and started moving towards the voices. On their way across the enormous deck, there were the running footsteps of the crew, rapidly trying to hide. Some of them weren't fast enough or just stupid enough to climb up into the rigging, where the reds awaited them. Sayron let the Minions decide their fate. One terrified man, reeling in a sail rope while mumbling like an idiot, he simply shoved aside and strode on. 

They reached the back of the deck. The Overlord looked about him in surprise – it was teeming with lounging chairs and small tables. Why would you put those on the deck of a galleon? 

A single, bloated man with far too little clothing for Sayron's liking was lying on one of the chairs, fast asleep with a cloth over his face. The Overlord raised the cloth. The man continued snoring. 

Gloob came standing with them and poked the man's lard. "Wake up," he chittered. "Too late for running, blubberguts!" He poked again, a sharp jab this time. The man squealed and dazedly opened his eyes. He gave a muffled squeak as he saw Sayron bent over him. 

"W-what's happening?" he stammered. "Where is everybody?" 

"They ran off to a place they thought safe," Sayron answered. He winked and raised his axe. 

Gnarl chose that moment to call out. "Wait a minute, Sire!" 

"Gnarl? Where were you all this time?" 

Back at the Tower, the advisor grimaced. He'd spent all morning having the throne room fixed after Jinx and Kelda had come barging in, returning from a hunt in Nordberg together with a gigantic live polar bear, trying with all its might to free itself from all of the nets, ropes and throwing hooks wrapped around its paws and snout. The bear had been dragged off to the private quarters where Kelda was now turning it into a nice carpet, but it was only now that Gnarl had clear sight of the mist pool again. "...You wouldn't believe me, Sire." He coughed. "But let that bloated sack of wine live for a moment. I've got a suspicion it could be useful. Instead of your axe, maybe you could use your gauntlet, hmm?" 

Sayron laid his weapon on his shoulder. The man followed the huge jagged blade with wide eyes and fast breathing. Then his eyes shot to the Overlord's hand, gradually squinting, for Sayron was bringing his finger to the man's forehead. "Yes, Gnarl," he spoke. "That's a good idea indeed." 

The blue lightning ignited around his gauntlet, but instead of jolting, smoking and dying the fat man reacted differently altogether. His eyes didn't flash as the deadly energy shot out of them, but slowly rolled upwards. For a brief moment he became entirely limp as the magic took hold of him, then he seemed to come back to life again. 

"I'm your devoted slave, Master," he mumbled. 

Sayron laughed softly. He hadn't used this spell that often yet. Actually, the sole time he had was when he was proving himself as the next Overlord. Back then he had forced some Nordbergians to submit themselves to him, but he assumed they'd been killed by their fellow townsfolk the very same day. Humans were that merciful sometimes. 

It really did feel good to dominate Empire people. "Gnarl, you're right. This is going to be fun." He watched as the fat man stood from his chair and came standing behind him. The Minions reluctantly parted to let him do so. 

"It certainly is," the advisor agreed. The elder Minion laughed for a moment. "I have the idea there are some more potential slaves waiting for you behind those doors, Master."

They were. 

The doors in the towering aft castle lead to a broad corridor, completely lined with gleaming wood, beautiful carvings and luxuriant red carpets. On both sides, there was a door every couple of yards. From behind the doors sounded fearful voices and soft whimpering. This ship was carrying passengers. 

Sayron kicked in the first door. There, a corpulent couple was waiting for him, fearfully holding each other and trying to hide in a corner of the beautifully furbished room, just below a large porthole. They tried to push their fat a little further into the wall as the Overlord approached them. 

"B-back, demon," the man stammered. "This ship is well protected and the captain won't let you..." 

"Oh, I do think so," Sayron chuckled. He raised his hand and let the blue lightning fly in two directions at once. Before long, the two had joined his horde. 

He could just hear how Gnarl, back at the Tower, rubbed his hands together in glee. Sayron stepped through the corridor wearing a large grin and pointed at the next door. "Break it." 

The Minions started running already, but he raised his hand. "Not you. _You._" 

The three Empire citizens stepped forward and started beating at the door with their fists and feet. 

Sayron threw back his head and laughed. 

A while later all doors in the aft castle were wrecked, as were the rooms behind them. Sayron had looted everything he thought useful or pretty, and his horde not only consisted of twenty Minions but also of quite a lot of civilians from the Glorious Empire. The Overlord amused himself for a while by giving them all kinds of weird commands and let them fight each other – something especially appreciated by the Minions. Half an hour later however, some new figures came towards them through the corridor there'd been earlier. 

The one at the front was wearing a dark, oiled overcoat, covered with a magnificently embroidered sash around his shoulders. That had to be the captain. His teeth were clenched as he strode closer in front of his remaining crew. He opened his mouth to speak up, but Sayron beat him to it. "You want to know who I am and what I've done to your soldiers, passengers and most of your crew?" 

The captain nodded while most colour drained from his face. However, he stayed where he was. Sayron caught himself slightly impressed. 

"I've killed them or submitted them to my will," the Overlord smiled. "And you have to consider yourself lucky I answer with the truth instead of my axe." 

"Release them," the captain spoke with a surprisingly steady voice. 

"No," Sayron answered calmly. "They're mine now." 

One of the crew members behind the captain laid a hand on his superior's shoulder. "Captain, can't we..." 

"No," the captain spoke, shaking off the hand. He kept looking at Sayron, still deathly pale with fear but determined nonetheless. "I won't abandon my ship and passengers." 

Much later, Sayron would still think of that day, and even as he sent his Minions running towards the men and the captain's blood splattered his axe he was full of surprise – and maybe even a bit of admiration – with the determination the captain had displayed. 

He carefully untied the magnificent sash from the man's shoulders. Behind him, the passengers were looking on without emotion. For a moment he held the cloth in front of him, then he untied the red, fur-lined cape off his own shoulders and laid it over the captain. Then he tied the sash around himself, turned away from the corridor and stepped out on the deck. 

Having such a bond with your people... being prepared to fight for them... would it have its advantages? He briefly looked back at his Minions and recalled how Gnarl had reconstructed the journey of Jinx and Kniff through Nordberg. 

Maybe. Maybe not. It wasn't him lying dead in a wrecked aft castle. 

After having resupplied their food storage with the galleon's, he left the passengers with the command to navigate the ship back to the Empire. They could have a good laugh about it.

"_You're not as tough as them._" 

"Who's the strongest Minion here now that's Stripe's gone, Gnarl?" 

Gnarl looked up. He wasn't surprised to see Jinx hanging upside down above his head, her ropes firmly tied around two stalactites above the throne. "Don't even think about sitting on it," he said calmly. "And good morning." 

"Morning, Gnarl." Jinx let herself fall in front of the seat of power. The Minions kept the cushions free of dust, but if the throne had had a voice, it'd have been calling for its rightful inhabitant. Sayron was gone for two months now. "I repeat my question." 

"No, you don't." 

Jinx blew. "Word games. You're just as bad as Quaver." She grinned at a corner of the hall. "No offense." 

"None taken," Quaver grinned back. He pondered for a moment. Then, plucking the strings of his harp with his feet, he muttered:  
>"Many ships the Empire has,<br>They're docked in every harbour and their captains had no fear  
>But none of them is really able<br>To resist Lord Sayron, world's darkest buccaneer..." 

In the meantime Gnarl pointed at the exit of the throne room, where the jutting platform stuck out into the void and the floating rock was docked. "The strongest Minion of them all isn't here or at the barracks. He's hanging around in the forge. You can't miss him. He's the second oldest Minion in here." 

"Who's the oldest then?" Jinx saw his face and laughed. "Something tells me I've got to fly to the forge fast. Ta!" 

Gnarl grumbled as she went off, half running and half grasping everything protruding with her ropes. "Sire, sometimes I wish you hadn't _found_ that harp..." 

Jinx was already sitting crouched on the floating rock, her head down. She'd discovered it went its fastest this way. To slow down, you just had to stand up. With most Minions the thing was quick as lightning. 

She was aiming for a place she'd never been to before – the lower regions of the Netherworld. The caves there were red-hot with lava. It was the place where unusable pieces of armour and weaponry were turned into things the Minions could use, and also where Sayron's new armour and weapons were forged. Jinx knew there was a forge there, but she was already practicing with Parch above the lava flow at least once a week and she didn't need any more heat. 

By now she'd also changed her clothing. The seal furs now hung from the walls of her barrack, she didn't need them anymore – except when she went out hunting in Nordberg with Kelda, something she did frequently. But here in the Netherworld there was a new, brown shirt fluttering in the hot air, as was a red sash tied around her waist which she'd nicked from one of the collections of the Tower. And instead of shoes she'd wrapped a thick cloth around her feet. Those made her noiseless on the stone floors of the Tower. On a fine day, Jinx had climbed the outside of the Tower to the private quarters to see what they looked like now. She'd made it, and no one had heard her, but as Kelda saw her when she looked up from one of the many books that were stored there she'd smiled broadly and asked what had taken her so long. 

Gnarl might disapprove, but she was now authorised to be upstairs. It had been a fine day indeed. 

The last part of her new outfit consisted of a red cloth tied around her head. She'd carefully washed all of her own blood from the shred of cloak Kniff had torn from his, and had taken it with her ever since. She couldn't use any loose hair right now – any distraction could be lethal when working with the ropes. 

On top of that, she missed Kniff immensely. The other Minions were nice enough, but Kniff... 

She looked forward. She was busy ticking off a list. Maybe she'd meet him again soon.  
>The rock swooped further down, into the real scorching heat. She was surprised a brown Minion worked in the forge – normally those shied away from fire. <p>

As the rock docked she could hear a steady beating above the roar of the lava, like hammer blows. 

It was hammer blows. 

Jinx descended down a broad flight of stairs, shielding her eyes as she did so. Everything was quivering in a haze of blazing heat. But there, hammering out a piece of brilliantly shining metal on an anvil five times his height, was a brown Minion equipped with a steel welding mask, thick gloves and a leather breast plate. His hammer was huge, certainly for a Minion.  
>More Minions were scurrying about, both red and brown. The reds were running between two enormous pits where the lava flowed down and kept the heart of the forge going. The browns were busy with less fiery tasks. But it was clear who it was Gnarl had spoken of.<br>Jinx slowly approached the anvil. The brown Minion kept on hammering. "I'm sorry," she shouted above the noise. "I need to talk to you!" 

The Minion continued beating the metal. Jinx glanced at his work. It was a sword, a rough version of a gargantuan blade. It was long, jagged and very pointy and there was no doubt of who was going to wield it. Jinx caught herself admiring it. There were faint traces of snarling horrors at the base of the blade, and this sword was clearly going to be a real gem when it would be finished, more than worthy of replacing the axe Sayron was now working with. 

Being this close, she could really see how large this Minion was. She found it hard to believe, but this one was bigger and stronger than Stripe. Not many Minions were wiry, but this one was truly muscular. Now she knew what Sayron had meant when he said she wasn't as tough as a Minion... 

He raised his mask, lifting it on top of his head. His eyes were gleaming yellowy brown. "What?" he shouted. 

"I need to talk to you," Jinx repeated. 

"What for?" 

"I want –" She hesitated. "This won't do," she said to herself, inaudible to the Minion. She stepped behind the anvil and dragged him off his platform. He might be the largest Minion she'd ever laid eyes on, but he was still smaller than she was. 

The next instant, the entire world exploded into the void, starting at the back of her head.  
>When she was able to see something again, it was two yellowy brown eyes full of shame. Jinx focused and made out the rest of the Minion. The world around her was quiet, however that might just be her being deaf after the incredible noise in the forge. <p>

"I'm sorry," the Minion spoke. Ah, not deaf, then. 

"For what?" 

"He whacked you in the back of the head," another voice sounded, with considerably more than just a hint of evil glee. Gnarl stepped into her view. "I'm surprised you're still alive. Most whacked into the back of the head by Giblet won't do anything more interesting than drool, in the best case." 

"Ah. Thank you for that piece of information," Jinx said, glaring at the advisor angrily. Gnarl chuckled darkly. 

Giblet shifted his feet. "Gnarl says you want to learn from me…" 

Jinx returned her attention to the forger. She was surprised by his calmness. She'd seen Stripe in action and she'd heard how he'd raged during the fight on the Empire galleon, and Giblet was bigger and stronger still. But he seemed friendly and even a bit passive. "Yes, I'd really like to. I'd like you to teach me how to fight, Giblet." 

"Giblet hasn't fought in years, except with his apprentices," Gnarl spoke up. "And aren't you quite skilled already, Jinx?" 

"I'm whacking around a lot at the barracks, yes, but I keep on losing," Jinx reluctantly admitted. "I'll never be able to claim a spot in the horde if I..." 

"I understand," Giblet nodded.

Gnarl turned to face him. "Are you sure, Giblet?" 

He nodded again. 

Gnarl exchanged a glance with Jinx and the two of them distanced themselves from Giblet a bit. "This is unique," Gnarl muttered as soon as they were out of range for the large Minion to hear. "You have to know, Giblet has turned away from the outside world and the fighting as he became forge master. He was spawned shortly after we lost Lord Alcazar – sadly chopped to pieces by the Seven Heroes. After that, he served Lord Vessperion, the current Master's father. He helped retrieve the old Tower Heart – which we've unfortunately lost again – and then it became clear he was the one destined to bring the old forge to life again. He never looked back and he never fought again. Until now. Be a bit careful with him." 

"_Me?_ With _him?_" 

Gnarl nodded. He seemed to be serious. "He's the toughest we've got, but I always suspected there was a reason behind his dedication to the Netherworld. Even I would return to fight if..." 

"...if only you were a couple of centuries younger, yes." 

Gnarl cast a sideways glare at Jinx, his eyes narrowed to glowing slits. "One of these days, lady, I'm going to suspend you in oil, have you dried with sandpaper, put in my Iron Maiden and have the thing thrown off the stairs from the private quarters." 

Jinx grinned. "Already looking forward to it."

Two days later, she was still in her barrack, every couple of hours sending a painful surge of healing magic to her broken arm, splintered kneecap, strained neck, swollen ankle and bumped skull, all thanks to Giblet. She refused Mortis' help, because she could now tick two things off her list at once.

Two weeks after, she managed to pry Giblet off her back for the first time, flinging him against the throne room wall by his leg, ruining a magnificently carved dragon's head. Gnarl was furious, but she was too cheerful to notice.

A week after that, she had to let Kelda go out hunting by herself considering Giblet had hit her on the head so hard she'd become temporarily half-blind. Parch came to visit her sometimes, regretting the fact she was now wounded so often she could barely practice above the lava flow anymore.

As her vision was restored three days later, she managed to grab Giblet at his throat with one of her ropes, which she wasn't supposed to bring but had done so anyway. But the Minion laughed and said his kind never played fair either. However, she did leave the ropes from then on. 

The next time they fought, she jumped over him, grabbed his feet and wiped the entire throne room with him until he turned around and broke three of her toes with his hammer. She didn't let go, but jumped head over heels with a salto which surprised her more than Giblet. She managed to whack his head into a pillar. After that, the forge master didn't move anymore. She pulled him towards her and noticed the front of his helmet was dented inwards so far she could barely get it off his head. This time, it was Giblet who needed healing.

As she, two weeks after that, removed a couple of his teeth with one blow and the blood came trickling down his chin, Giblet cancelled the training. 

Jinx looked at him, the familiar adrenalin coursing through her entire body. "But we're just starting!" 

"Jinx..." Giblet said, futilely trying to wipe the blood from his mouth, "...not much left to teach you." 

"Not much?" she asked, incredulously. 

"Nothing." 

Jinx gasped, a grin plastered across her face. "Giblet…" 

"Go. Beat Stripe. You're strong enough." 

She fell silent. "So you know." 

"Not difficult to see what you're up to, Jinx," the powerful Minion smiled while bending over to the shadows and spitting the blood out of his mouth outside of Gnarl's vision. The elder Minion strained his neck to see what they were doing, but couldn't hear them as they'd been fighting on the other end of the throne room. "You're going back up top..." 

"And you'd like to do the same, wouldn't you?" Jinx bit her tongue as those words left her mouth. She'd never spoken of this after what Gnarl had told her. 

Giblet remained silent for a moment, his back still turned to her. Then he faced her. He shook his head. "No." 

"Why not? All Minions live to be out there, the fight, the excitement…" 

"Not for me." 

Jinx leant against the wall. "You're the most powerful Minion that ever lived. I don't believe I can take you on, not even after nearly two months of non-stop training. You could lead them, you could be the one who beats Stripe..." 

"Do I look like a leader?" Giblet interrupted her. "Young Stripe fares way better than old Giblet with the rusty head. Strength isn't everything, Jinx." 

Jinx stared at him. So that was it. He knew he was the strongest of them all – he'd already known during Vessperion's reign – and he'd turned away from the world because of it. He knew he'd become the leader if he continued, and he was afraid he'd make a mess of it... He preferred to put his enormous strength to use in the forge rather than on the battlefield.  
>That testified of much more understanding than she'd expected from a Minion. They kept surprising her. <p>

She offered her wrapped hand. Giblet gripped it with his sharp claws and pressed so hard she could hear several of her digits snap. Despite the pain in her now broken fingers, Jinx laughed and took a fling at him, but he ducked and ran straight through the hall to the jutting platform, jumped onto the floating rock and let himself be flown back to his chosen, red-hot, noisy home.

The sun was sinking in the west. The deck was already dark, but in the top of the mast, a small strip of blinding light was still visible on the horizon. 

Kniff stared at it and wondered when Everlight would appear on that horizon. He'd wondered that often during the past months, and some other things, too. 

He wondered how Jinx was faring. 

During their voyage, they'd fought sea monsters, they'd attacked several ships, they'd discovered islands not even marked on Gnarl's charts – but Jinx had never spoken through the mist pool, or at least, not when Kniff was around Sayron and able to hear her. Coincidence had kept them apart for a long time. He missed her, and he knew the same applied to the black-haired girl deep below the earth. 

She was human, but not like the others. He'd started liking her even during the travel through Nordberg, and it had only grown in the short while after. 

How severely would she have changed during all those months when the ship had been on its way? Who would he meet as he returned to their shared barrack? 

Or, more likely... who would meet him as she returned to the upper world herself, to fight with them as soon as she could? 

There was something dark on the horizon, just like that. 

Kniff looked up, putting his thoughts aside, and raised a clawed hand above his eyes. Could that...?

Scabies, the Minion taking the helm when Sayron wasn't commanding the ship, slightly loosened the bandana he'd tied over his ears as he made out a yell from the mast. "Wha?" he shouted back. 

"...and!" 

"Who's being branded?" 

"LAND!" 

"Land? Land!" Scabies followed Kniff's angrily pointing finger, saw the dark spots on the horizon and shouted excitedly. "Land!" 

"Everlight!" Kniff laughed, swinging towards the deck like a monkey. "Jinx," he added silently.

"_I believe you're brave, but you're fragile._" 

Jinx ran along the jutting rock spike towards the precipice and took a jump. For several heartbeats she let herself fall free through the gorge, towards the lava flow which ate its way through the stone underground of the Netherworld, then she cast out a rope and swapped her downward flight for a swooping forwards motion. She pulled the rope free and threw out her other, came closer to the gorge wall, put her feet on it and ran along the vertical rock face, faster than she'd ever done before. She kept on casting ropes so she could keep on running, blinked past the red Hive, caught a flash of a beaming Parch and saluted him, immensely grateful for his lessons. She flew on over the lava flow, so fast she missed a sharp spike of rock and couldn't prevent faltering for a second. She acquired a deep cut on her ankle. 

Then the gorge opened and she had a magnificent view over the Netherworld – the Tower, all of the rivers and lava flows, and the browns' barracks. She pulled her ropes free and jumped into the void with spread arms as if embracing the abyss. She enjoyed the warm wind blowing her hair and clothes backwards for a full five seconds. Then she threw out both her ropes and swung down to the barracks, fixated her own, carefully calculated the distance and flew in through the open door in one smooth movement. 

Jinx rolled over once and climbed to her feet. She slung her ropes around her shoulders and walked through the swaying little building to the stool she'd taken from the Tower. In the meantime, she sent magic to her ankle, almost without consciously noticing. The wound healed within moments, leaving a faint scar. 

She sat down and took her bandana from a hook on the wall. For a moment, she just sat there holding it. Kniff's cloak shred. 

"_You're not cut out for the battlefield._" 

Jinx sighed. She'd done everything she could. She was new… 

"They're ashore!" 

Her head flew up. "Parch?" she yelled. 

The red Minion tumbled into the barrack like a shooting star. "Quaver's running around like maniac – they're ashore!" He'd followed her so fast his glowing chest was rising and falling rapidly. 

"They're ashore. They're _ashore!_" Jinx stared at him, her eyes wide with joy. "Oh, finally!" She grabbed him and jumped around the entire barrack with him. "Thank you, Parchie!" 

"Welcome," the red Minion grinned as she jumped out of the barrack so fast he had to grab hold with his tail against the rocking.

As the floating rock docked at the Tower and she wanted to run in through the gate, something pulled her into the shadows to her left with enormous force. It was Giblet, and he was standing next to something huge and glittering on the ground. 

"Take this," he muttered, picking it up and handing it over to her. It was the large sword she'd seen him working on. It was completed. It was at least one and a half meters long, jagged and with a diamond-shaped end. The handle showed multiple growling creatures with bared teeth. Jinx held her breath while taking it. She sheathed it with some trouble.

"It's magnificent, Giblet." 

"Give it to the Master," he spoke. "He's not coming back." 

"Not?" Jinx said, confused. "But… Kelda… he…" 

"No time for talking! Go!" 

She jumped and quickly strapped the sword to her back with the leather belts attached to the sheath. The weapon didn't trouble her moving that much. 

Then she ran off, with a last glance at the forge master and the barracks in the distance.

There was a lot of commotion in the throne room. Gnarl was sitting at the mist pool without even blinking his eyes, but Kelda was circling around him with uncharacteristic anxiety. "He's got to return! Tell him to return!" There were excited Minions scurrying around everywhere. It was so crowded Jinx could sneak off to the shadow of a pillar without much trouble. She raised a hand to the portal. 

"To Everlight!" she shouted, and for a moment everyone stopped talking. She could just hear Kelda: "Take him back with you, Jinx!" 

Then the blue lightning flashed and she was yanked up to the portal – and through, back to the upper world at last.


	7. Key Stones

**All hail Sunjinjo the creator of this story. Do not claim Overlord only the OCs blah blah the usual stuff. Enjoy**

Chapter 6 – Key Stones

In one of Nordberg Town's houses, a man was busy waking up. He didn't look like a standard Nordbergian, dressed in thick fur and a hood. The furs weren't necessary anymore anyway, and not just because Midwinter had come and gone. The tar pits close to Nordhaven had burnt on beneath the snow and the fire'd reached the reservoirs deep within the earth. The average temperature in Nordberg had been raised. Many of the seals the people depended on had moved north, to the real pole where it was still cold enough for them. The wolves, however, had just shed a lot of their fur and still felt perfectly at home.

Nonetheless, this man still didn't look like the average Nordbergian. He was wrapped in bandages from head to toe. 

Kivner, the sole survivor of the Nordhaven inferno, coughed away the stinging tickle in his throat and sat up. The one eye that wasn't milky white acquired a puzzled expression. Then a voice sounded, rasping like a demon's: "I can talk..." 

His mangled vocal cords, destroyed by the fire, had finally healed again. 

The bandages around his mouth wrinkled as his mutilated face stretched in a smile. Now he could finally start on his task.

An entire continent to the south, a blue light flashed up and a small figure stepped out of the Everlight Tower Gate. Immediately, a rope flew up towards the branches of a tree nearby and the figure swung itself into the canopy. 

Jinx perched on the broad branch, gasping with surprise and lack of experience with this new, unfamiliar air. This was incredible... 

Wide skies. Blue waters. 

The temperature barely differed from the Netherworld's – if there was any difference, it was warmer here. The most striking was the enormous humidity. The water was just floating through the air. She could already feel the drops forming on her forehead. Screams and shouts of invisible birds and beasts echoed in a neverending cacophony and caused the tropical air to vibrate even more. 

From beneath the thick, gleaming leaves, dripping with water, she had a good view of her surroundings. The tree she was sitting in was growing on a small island. Further away laid more islands of varying form and height, right next to eachother and only separated by narrow streams of salt water. Every single one of them was covered with lush, blindingly green vegetation. 

Jinx let her gaze travel around. This was a towering jigsaw puzzle of islands. 

She doubted this was really Everlight. 

But there, disappearing behind a curtain of hanging plants across a narrow stream, was a white sail. The splashing of the oars still resounded, muffled by the quivering, thick air and the sounds of the animals. 

Sayron had to have called a Tower Gate while sailing past this small island. Maybe he'd briefly replenished his horde, but in any case he had sailed on almost immediately. Jinx looked back. There, half obscured by the outrageous amount of trees, plants and vines, was the open sea. They'd only just arrived. 

Well, it was a good thing she'd be able to manage herself here.

Back at the Tower Gnarl pondered the possibility of attending his Master to Jinx' presence, but chose not to. There were more important things requiring attention. 

This, indeed, wasn't Everlight yet. It was nearly invisible on the huge sea chart, but all around the tropical island was a wafer-thin chain of reefs. The current location of the Overlord was right in the middle of those reefs. The atoll formed an almost impregnable barrier around the sacred island. The advisor stooped over the chart so low the glowing rock above his head came to lie on it, to the great shock of a black rat gleefully gnawing at one of the parchment's ragged corners. 

Yes. That was it. 

"Master," Gnarl spoke to the mist pool. "You're currently in Everlight Reef. The elves believe it's Nature's blessing, keeping trespassers out of Everlight itself. I believe it's a blessing keeping the wet sops in one place, but that aside – you're close to the Reef Gates leading to the island itself." 

Sayron nodded shortly, at the helm as always. "In which direction are those gates?" 

"East, from where you are now. I trust they're open." Gnarl looked into the pool intently. "Is that a green tunic over there? My eyes aren't what they once were." 

In the Reef, Sayron peered forward through the swirling mists rising from the water's surface. And yes; there, stone dead on a piece of driftwood, was an Empire soldier. "It's a soldier. So the Empire's trying to reach Everlight..." 

"Yes, and they're fighting the elves to keep the gates open, I suspect. Good, let those idiots kill each other off without us... it's a pity, but it's useful." Gnarl hummed. "I think the Empire was winning until the waters started to rise." He snickered. "I've got the faint feeling Nordberg didn't hold its water, Sire..." 

"Yes, and I've got the faint feeling the elves are far more on their guard than you say, Gnarl," Sayron answered with a glance towards the suspicious rustling jumping through the treetops, on the invisible shore behind all the vines to their right.

The gloom below the deck of the ship was suddenly hellishly lit as a red Minion let himself fall down. Parch was excited and nervous in an exhilarated way; all the training in the Netherworld had finally made him strong enough to be allowed to fight in the horde! He'd joined his clan members in the red Minion Gate, and as he arrived at the Reef, Sayron had called him out. 

He looked about him and found what he was looking for. He ran for the Minion with the tuque hat. Kniff was busy rowing with all his strength, in the back of the starboard side. He looked up as Parch approached him and grinned broadly. "Parch!" 

"Jup!" the red laughed. "Finally got in!" He lowered his voice. "Kniff… she's here." 

Kniff shut his mouth and it was clear he immediately knew what Parch was talking about. His eyes gleamed. 

"Has changed though," the red warned him. He winked and ran off before the other rowers could ask him anything. 

"Thanks, Parch," Kniff called after him. He rowed on, with enough new force to let the ship sway to port slightly.

Jinx had rarely felt this alive. 

Impressions stormed her senses. It was all so strange, so different from everything she'd ever experienced! You really got somewhere if you crossed over to the Dark Side! 

A million scents were queuing in front of her nose, from rotting vegetation to the salt of the sea. Explosively coloured flowers shot past her as she soared through the treetops. The chattering of innumerable birds and beasts sounded through the air, echoing back even louder than before. And the temperature! She'd never felt this heat outside the forge!  
>She swung through it all, agile like a monkey, building bridges for herself between the trees and across small parts of sea between the islands. Luckily, there were always overhanging branches, so she didn't have trouble in any way. She was even more grateful to Parch now. Without him, she'd never have been able to follow the ship. <p>

She was very aware of the sword on her back. It was barely smaller than she was, and sometimes the sheathed point pricked into the back of her knees as she threw up her legs. But overall, it went well. She knew it was probably forbidden, but she was planning to try the weapon sooner or later. A real sword... she was quite content with her dagger, but still... 

She clasped a hand to her mouth as laughter escaped her. She was going faster than the ship now! She swung past it with ease, threw herself over a stream between two rocky islands and drew back between the feathery leaves of a huge segmented tree. From there, she peered at the ship, waiting for it to catch up with her. 

It seemed like they were having some difficulties. The water was shallow here, and filled with fallen branches, leaves and round green things Jinx took to be unripe coconuts. If she strained her ears, she could just hear Gnarl pour his advice out over the deck. 

She strained her eyes as well. They were having more trouble than just fallen branches. Something was clinging to the side of the ship. It was fleshy, and partly covered in scales, but bigger than most fish. Plus, it had arms. A deformed mouth full of sharp teeth spouted water at the Minions like a high-pressure sprayer, resulting in the Minions panicking and starting to jab at the creature with their weapons. A second creature hoisted itself up next to the first. 

Jinx stared at them, slightly nauseated. And she'd been thinking mermaids were beautiful... She suddenly laughed as she saw a Minion jump up towards an overhanging branch, after which he knocked the mermaid senseless with his coconuts. The reds also started attacking, and before long the fish creatures were forced to let go. 

She couldn't make out Kniff yet. He probably was rowing right now. Pity, she'd have loved to give him some kind of sign to let him know she was close. 

Then her eyes fell on Parch, right next to Sayron on the deck. He was suspiciously checking the undergrowth on the opposite shore like he expected something to pop out. 

Kniff did know she was close. She grinned and swung over to the next tree.

As the two mermaids had been thrown back into the water, Sayron focused on the streams ahead. To keep on sailing east wasn't as simple as it sounded. Right now, in fact, they were going straight to the north, something he could easily check basing himself on the sun and Gnarl's chart. But according to the elder Minion, they were close to the Reef Gates already.  
>Sayron noticed his Minions were more active than back at Nordberg, both the reds and the browns. He felt strangely excited himself. Maybe it was the heat, or the combination of smells – sharp and spicy with the numerous flowers and weeds, faint with rotting vegetation. Everything went faster here, was so much more alive than in the eternal, constant snow of Nordberg. <p>

The growth parted. 

Sayron briefly held his breath. Before his eyes, a green curtain seemed to open to a huge mirror of water, reflecting the blinding sunlight. This had to be the edge of the reefs. But that wasn't what had made him hold his breath. 

The Reef Gates were at least a hundred and fifty meters tall. 

They seemed to be made of an ancient, overgrown kind of stone and curved inward between two natural walls of the reef itself. Where the plants didn't have grip on it, traces of carved decoration were visible: a growling, stylized jaguar, a feathered snake, two staring eyes without pupils... 

More importantly: they were hanging wide open. 

"I told you so!" Gnarl cheered triumphantly. "The elves have had so many troubles with the Empire they haven't taken the trouble to close them yet, the bunch of ignorant carcasses!"  
>A muted rumbling resounded, so low Sayron felt it rather than heard it. A shiver ran across the misty surface of the water and the ship rocked slightly. <p>

Slowly, impossibly slowly, the Reef Gates started swinging forwards and towards each other. 

Sayron flung the wheel around. "No!" he roared. "Row! Row like you're getting paid for it!"

The Minions obeyed his words immediately and the ship shot forwards, but even now the Overlord could see they'd never make it in time. The gates were closing way too fast.

Long before the ship reached them, the gigantic stone doors came together with a booming, most definitive bang. A high wave raced away from them and towards the ship, and Sayron could feel his stomach rise as the ship was lifted. The currents caused the ship to drift away from the gates, spinning slowly. 

When they'd stopped moving, he sighed deeply. 

He heard Gnarl hold his breath sharply. "Sire." 

Sayron looked up. "What is it?" 

"There…" The advisor let his gaze travel around through Sayron's eyes. "And there… those glowing rocks… You have to be quick, the elves are taking them away! There's another two!" 

Sayron saw what he meant. On two high platforms on both sides of the gates, two glowing rocks had been standing, green and yellow, but they were now being rolled away by teams of green-clad figures... elves. Opposite the gates, on the other side of the bay, the same thing was happening to a red and a blue stone. Gnarl growled. "Those stones were keeping the gates open. They know what we're up to, Sire. Get back those stones, or you'll be hanging around on the elves' doorstep like a large, evil milk bottle…"

Jinx heard a resounding boom and felt a shiver run through the tree in which she was sitting. Birds were exploding out of the trees in flashes of brilliant colour all around her. She looked around, couldn't see where the noise had come from, and swung over to the top of the highest tree she could see. There, on the highest point of the small island, she peered into the direction the ship had sailed past her. 

The Reef Gates had closed. 

"Oh, crap." 

She balanced on her branch, thinner than she was used to. Fifty meters below her lay the forest floor, invisible beneath layers of bright green leaves and vines. She eventually cast out her right rope as well to keep herself up. 

They had closed. Why had they closed? If only she could hear Gnarl, she'd know what was going on! He always seemed to know everything... 

"...dock, you probably can..." A familiar voice gasped right next to her ear. For a moment, all was deathly silent. Then: "Jinx, what in the name of the Unholy God are you doing in my mist pool?" 

"Gnarl?" 

"No, the tooth fairy! Of course it's me! Question is, why is it you?" 

Jinx stayed still, no expression on her face, trying hard to keep squatting on her branch. "I was just thinking... I'd like to hear your voice," she forced herself to say. 

It was briefly silent again. "...WHAT?" 

"For information about those gates!" Jinx shouted, so loud birds flew up around her again. "Mother Goddess, what are you even thinking!" 

Gnarl gnashed his teeth. "None of your business." 

"Come on, I'm far more agile than that hunk of metal. How do we get them open?" 

"There is no 'we'! Get out of my mist pool!" 

"Like I've got the faintest idea how! You're controlling the thing!" 

"You've gotten yourself into it by thinking how much you'd like to hear my voice," Gnarl parried with a mocking imitation of her own voice. "You can think yourself out as well." 

"If you tell me how to open those gates again." 

"..." 

"Come now, I think Sayron's wondering where his advice is hanging out..." 

"Oh, right then! There are four glowing rocks, yellow, green, red and blue. Take them back to their slots around the bay and the gates will open. The elves are trying to make off with them. Get out of my pool!" 

"Thank you graciously." Jinx strained herself. _Out of the mist pool, out of the mist pool…_  
>After a while, she opened her eyes. "Gnarl?" she cautiously asked, trying not to think of the advisor. <p>

It remained silent. Jinx let her breath escape. It might be useful to hear him, but it made her nervous. It wasn't right. What was going on here? 

Soft voices sounded below her. She looked down and saw nothing. She pulled her ropes free and let herself fall through the vines to a point from where she could see the forest floor.  
>There were five figures standing there, human but not entirely. They were taller and more elegant, with large, almond-shaped eyes in brighter colours than normal for humans. Their long hair had been magnificently braided, and pointy ears were sticking out. Their clothes were entirely green, blending into the forest. <p>

Jinx revolted. 

Elves!

"...if you sail back just a little and dock, you probably can get to those elves, Sire," Gnarl hurried himself to say, fiercely hoping the Overlord wouldn´t make too much of a problem of his short absence. 

"Gnarl, what just happened?" 

Damn. 

"A short interference, Sire," the advisor lied. "Maybe it was caused by your immense distance to the Netherworld." 

"I never noticed it during the voyage," Sayron spoke, suspiciously. 

"I´m not sure, Master. It won´t happen again. I think that´s a good spot to dock," Gnarl tried to distract him as he furiously sought himself for a reason to be… protecting Jinx?

Elves… creators of music and poetry, constructors of elegant tree cities. The source of everything beautiful and useful, an example for every other living race. 

Jinx had heard everything about them and her opinion of the pointy-eared people had swung round completely during her time with the Minions. Just like with mermaids, the stories were far from the truth. 

Elves… huggers of trees and protectors of the cute and fuzzy. Winos, good-for-nothing weaklings! Even their immortality was a lie! 

She had to restrain herself to not fling herself at them. She wanted at their throats! But she knew elves were strong, probably even stronger than Nordbergian hunters. If she´d played it cleverly, she could get away with total victory. If not, she wouldn´t get away at all. 

"He´s the one who destroyed the sanctuary!" one of the elves whined. "Florian told me all about it. He hunted the little white ones!" 

Jinx chuckled. Baby seals. The elves were just the types to take those into protection. 

"If we can get the Key Stones over the Reef Gates and ship them to Everlight, we´re saved. Then no one will get through anymore, Empire or demons. Then we can finally start healing the island…" 

Jinx slightly cramped on her branch. Over the Reef Gates? How were they planning to do that…? 

"I´ll see you at the high platforms, Morvan, Jared. Nadir, Chador, you go help with the red and blue Stones." 

"And you, Kamáel?" 

"They need me at the Gates." 

The elf who´d asked, addressed as Morvan, nodded. Then he took such a jump Jinx´ eyes nearly rolled backwards in their sockets. In one flash he was sitting in the topmost branches, and with another he launched himself over a stream to a neighbouring island, probably on his way to the heights as Kamáel had told him. Jared followed, and the three others also flew off like living lightning, with such speed it seemed there were coiled springs inside their long, outstretched legs. 

Jinx gasped for breath. So they were capable of quite something, too! 

Oh, she´d teach them a lesson about jumping. The treetops would be hers!

A ragged shadow stumbled out of the door opening and into the wet streets. The beautiful white landscapes of Nordberg were no more. Mud and water were all that was left of them. Spring had come, with murderous force and way too early. 

Not that it did anything to _him_. 

Kivner stepped onto the low balcony overseeing the large square and spread his bandaged arms. "Friends!" he called out. "Friends, hear me!" 

His voice resounded through the streets and the people who heard him looked up. Not so much because of what he said, as because of the voice with which he said it. Kivner´s vocal cords weren´t fully healed and they never would do so either. His voice was low and rasping, not so very different from an exceptionally low-pitched Minion´s. The couple of Minions patrolling the square laughed and nodded in appreciation as they heard him speak. 

"What do you want?" someone yelled. There was a buzzing of voices across the square already: "That´s the bloke who came crawling from Nordhaven…" "Did _you_ see his face?"

"No, but my cousin knows someone who…"

"He´s completely mad!"

But in the meantime, the Nordbergians were starting to group, whether they wanted to or not. 

Kivner waited for a moment. Then he leaned forward over the stone balustrade of the balcony. "I´m here because I can finally speak again and I want to ask you a question." The people cringed as his inhuman voice reached their ears. "It´s a simple one." 

"Ask it!"

"Did you call us out for this?"

From one of the streets, a woman came running. She had a basket full of groceries hanging from her arm, swinging as she came to an abrupt standstill at the square´s edge. She silently shook her head, a pained expression on her pale face. "Kivner…" 

Miraculously, the mutilated man caught her gaze, even if she was nearly out of his sight.

"Thank you for making this possible, Estua," he spoke softly. Then he turned back to the now fully formed mob. 

"What do you think of the Overlord?"

The leaves flashed past her as if they were the ones with rockets strapped to their backs.  
>Jinx gave everything. She was furious. That elf! That damned elf! It was Nadir she was tailing now, as Kamáel and Jared had taken a different turn early on and Chador had also bounded off so fast she hadn´t been able to follow him. Nadir was the slowest. He was also standing out the most because of his red hair. It was a funny thing he eventually landed next to the red Key Stone, already in the safe hands of a group of elves on a small beach in the middle of the reefs. They´d chosen a good spot, Jinx had to admit. She wouldn´t have found it if Nadir hadn´t led her to it. The beach lay on a small stream of seawater, completely overgrown and invisible from the outside, as were the surroundings. They were enclosed on three sides by overgrown rock cliffs. The elves had constructed a couple of bamboo platforms against them, where some of them were vigilantly watching as Nadir let himself fall from the cliffs. Jinx stayed up, but did notice an overgrown opening in the rock. Hopefully it lead somewhere close to the spot where Gnarl was directing Sayron to.<br>The Stone was a bit imposing. It was cylinder-shaped, two meters tall and made of the same stone as the Reef Gates themselves. A mysterious red glow was emanating from eight wide eyes without pupils, four pairs circling the Stone´s outside, and four gaping mouths. Unintelligible tokens were carved over the entire surface. 

Jinx was sure it´d be easy to steal if five Minions put their shoulders under it. 

But first there was the matter of the elves. There were ten of them, all fully alert for intruders. If they all stayed here, there would be deaths, and she didn´t want that. Even if Mortis and his Well were present back at the Netherworld, she wanted to minimalize the number of Minions dying. 

So… 

"Yoohoo! Elfies!" 

Ten pairs of almond-shaped eyes immediately turned into her direction as she elegantly swung down from the cliffside and landed lightly on the sand. She slung her rope over her shoulder and stepped at the elves, looking Nadir straight into his brown eyes, red with the glow from the Stone. He looked back, to Jinx´ surprise uncaring. Were they really that naïve?

Then again, she was just a scrawny girl in a shirt… 

She reached backwards and pulled Sayron´s sword from the sheath. 

_Now_ she had their attention. 

"I´ve been sent by Lord Sayron of the Netherworld to claim the Stone," she spoke, the most vile smile she could manage plastered across her face. She drew a line in the sand with the gargantuan blade, trying hard to not let it slip from her fingers. "Any who has problems with that, come across this line and try to stop me! And let´s make that a test in agility while we´re at it," she added as she cast out a rope towards a young tree halfway up the cliff behind her. 

Five elves ran forward, among whom Nadir himself. 

She pulled the rope taut and let herself fly.

Sayron spun the wheel around and docked along the rocky shore of a small island. It seemed like nothing special, but Gnarl maintained there were probably two of the Stones hidden here. So the Overlord and his horde went ashore and began hacking themselves a path through the undergrowth. 

Eventually, they came across a solid rock wall. 

Sayron opened his mouth to complain to Gnarl for not reading the map right, but the advisor beat him to it. 

"Don´t fear, Sire, your axe won´t break on that wall. You´ll see." 

Sayron reluctantly raised his weapon and swung it at the wall. 

His axe and entire arm disappeared in the undergrowth. There was no wall there. It was a tunnel. 

He hacked on until every vine and hanging plant was gone and then stepped into the darkness, which spontaneously lit up as the reds followed him. He slightly jumped as a small bit of the dark came loose and flapped him into the face while squeaking angrily, but then realized he´d just disturbed a nest of bats. You didn´t have those in Nordberg. He waved the bat away and walked on. His Minions were making excited little sounds. 

Green light was filtering through from the other side. Three swings of his axe later, and he had clear sight of the red Key Stone. 

Five green-clad elves gasped for breath. 

Didn´t he just send his messenger?

Jinx panted with strain as she explored her limits in her flight through the treetops. She´d lured the five away from the Stone, but she didn´t have the faintest clue if it would be of any use to the Overlord. To be completely sure of that, she had to get rid of the elves. 

They were right behind her, but they didn´t have experience with her unpredictable way of moving. In the blink of an eye, she could be meters away to the left or right, all thanks to her ropes. 

Those ropes were very useable for other purposes, too. 

Jinx let one of them flick out to an elf who´d nearly caught up with her and grabbed his throat. He was moving with such speed he flew into the undergrowth head over heels. Jinx just caught a glance of a bush with thorns at least half a meter long, on which the elf now lay skewered, bleeding from at least twenty deadly wounds. 

One down, four to go.

Sayron cursed, furious. He swung his axe time and time again, but the elves he was at battle with kept dodging, quick as lightning. His Minions had more success – to bring down an elf, you had to attack from all sides at once. The fight was long and tiring. Eventually he managed to dispatch his own two elves, the first with a simple beheading and the second with a stroke of his axe leaving the weapon embedded in the elf´s chest. 

"May the Mother Goddess curse your black soul," the last one whispered as he died. 

Sayron chuckled, fatigued. "May my father teach your goddess a lesson," he said, sending a respectful thought to Lord Vessperion, now ruler of the Infernal Abyss. 

"Right, lads, grab that Stone." 

Five Minions hauled the red Stone up and grabbed the underside. Not at all too stable, but surprisingly fast, they went after Sayron with it. 

"The slot has to be somewhere close," Gnarl spoke.

Jinx managed to get rid of two more elves by returning the way she´d come from and waiting for them with Sayron´s sword. As they leaped at her, the elves skewered themselves onto the razor-sharp blade. Now it was just Nadir and one other elf chasing her, but they were all the more furious. 

There was the sound of a horn calling. 

The girl perked her ears. She knew that tone. 

Come to think of it, there _had_ been green tunics floating along between all those coconuts…  
>She altered her course and went north, in the direction of the horn. Very soon she could see white, spanned surfaces, just visible between the parting leaves, and wasn´t that a gold-coloured glittering…? <p>

She landed with a thud on the churned, deforested soil. 

She was stared at from all sides by Empire soldiers. 

Jinx turned around and looked up expectantly. Yep. That´d be Nadir, pouncing down like a hunting jaguar. And the other elf, too.  
>She cast out a rope and shot back into the trees as the two threw themselves into the Empire camp without looking. This time, the soldiers were on their guard. <p>

One elf leader down, four to go!

For a short while, everyone in Nordberg´s great square was silent. The people looked about them nervously, their eyes lingering on the present Minions. There seemed to be more of them than just a minute ago. 

"Well… he´s great, of course, getting rid of Borius like that…" 

"Yeah, yeah!" someone else hurried to say. "We have to consider ourselves lucky with him…" 

Kivner looked out over the heads for a while. "You´re all lying." 

He didn´t speak loudly, but everyone silenced again in an instant. "If you´d really find him that great, you´d be actually helping him." 

Again, everyone held his tongue. Then a large man with a black beard raised a fist. "Indeed, they´re lying! And who are you trying to fool? He´s just as bad as Borius, if not worse! Those creatures of his watching our every move, the ice melting away, one of our women kidnapped to his domain… what´s next? At least Borius left us alone…" 

On the edges of the square, one of the Minions put two clawed fingers in his mouth and whistled softly. From the streets more came running. 

Kivner nodded calmly. "I´m glad you´re honest with me. If you´re honest, I can make you see the truth…" 

More people started to get uneasy. The buzz grew louder, and all of it was against Sayron.  
>In the alley, Estua was still looking on, rooted to the spot. She didn´t want to see where this´d end. "Oh, Kivner, what has become of you…" <p>

Another woman came standing next to her. Short black hair peeked out from underneath a dark hood. 

"He´s hopeless, love. But then again, all men are."

A sandy path, covered with dead leaves, led up along the small bay and from there along the vertical cliff. But as the huge Key Stone brushed past the growth, Sayron could see this was no natural wall. There were separate stones visible. This wall had been built. 

And yes, soon they came across a second tunnel. On the other side, behind a curtain of vines, a stone pier could be seen, looking over the Reef Gates themselves. They´d come full circle. On the end of the pier was a round hole. It did resemble a keyhole. 

As the five Minions lowered the Key Stone into it a red light blazed along the length of the pier, and a shiver ran through the gates. Gnarl hummed contently. "Well done, Sire. Three more. I advise the stairs to your right. That temple looks like a good spot to hide a second Stone."

Halfway up the overgrown wall Jinx had watched the Stone being set into place. She rubbed her hands. If she could continue helping them unseen, they´d be almost invincible.

She´d acquired some wounds during her hunt with the elves, but she´d healed them already. The magic had fatigued her, but she could fix that, too, by eating something. There were three hands of ripe bananas tied around the sword´s handle. She chuckled. Sayron apparently didn´t trust the fruits of Everlight, because the only supplies on the ship still consisted of dried meat, fish and hardtack. He hadn´t added any fruit on any of the islands along the way. Those poor Minions. She was surprised they didn´t all suffer from scurvy. 

"…to hide a second Stone," Gnarl´s voice sounded in the wind. Jinx looked down. They were climbing the stairs to the right of the pier. She followed their path with her eyes. There, on the very top of the island, lay an ancient, weathered temple. She could hear faint elven voices from here. 

Chador! He was on this island, too. He hadn´t been able to get the blue Stone away, so he simply had it brought to a well-defendable place. 

Jinx cast a glance at the sky. The sun started setting already. That might take eternity here in the tropics, but she hoped she could use it to her advantage anyway. In the Netherworld, she´d become used to the dark, unlike those light magic maniacs of elves… she hoped.  
>She climbed the cliffs straight towards the temple. Halfway, there were some statues of an elegantly built elven woman wearing a high, angular hat and holding two knives in her slender hands. That had to be the Mother Goddess. She made a welcome foothold. <p>

Two leaps and she was standing on the temple roof. 

Suddenly a rope was pulled taut around her neck, just like that. 

Three elves with slender swords jumped onto the roof. One of them held the rope and pulled her towards him. His eyes were bright blue and she recognized him as Chador. 

Jinx growled at them and unsheathed Sayron´s sword. She swung it in lethal circles, but she couldn´t handle it and the elves avoided the blade with ease. Before she knew it, she was all tied up and Chador raised her chin with his own sword. 

"You´re just a child, so I´ll spare your life," he said. He pushed her into the arms of the two others. "Lock her away in the back of the temple and then get back immediately. We´ll be needing everyone." 

"Just a child!" Jinx raged as she was dragged into the temple. "I´ll show you, bloody elf! This child will singlehandedly bite your head off if the Minions won´t!"

Several Minions perked their ears, halfway up the stairs. That hadn´t been a bird or monkey. That voice sounded familiar to them. 

The ears that had risen highest belonged to Kniff and Parch. The two exchanged glances. Parch nodded quickly. Kniff´s eyes flashed. "Problems…" 

"We´ve got them too," Parch parried. He had a fireball at the ready in both of his hands, just like the rest of his clan. 

Sayron didn´t seem to have heard the scream, because he continued climbing the stairs at the same pace. He looked up expectantly. Behind the canopy of trees growing on the cliff, the temple rose. He didn´t doubt the fact the blue Stone was located there. 

Without warning, five elves launched themselves out of the growth on both sides of the stairs. Sayron immediately lashed out with his axe. The Minions were momentarily dazed with the speed of their attackers, but then they also drew their weapons and the familiar noise of battle resounded across the bay. 

The entire stairs had become a battlefield. There were only five elves, but they were all at the centre of a whirlwind of destruction. They fought elegant and swift, and with far more fire than the five at the red Stone. 

Kniff jumped back to avoid a deft jab with an elven sword, but still acquired a deep cut across his chest. Then he bent over and ran between the elf´s legs. A moment later he was on his back and pulled the hat of his pointy-eared enemy over his eyes. Then he nodded to Parch, higher up the cliffs. The red Minion began throwing fireballs with both hands and before long, the elf was ablaze. He screamed and whacked at his clothes, but Kniff made sure he couldn´t see anything. Just before the elf ran over the cliff, towards his death, he jumped off his back. He laughed and threw himself back to the stairs.

The stone door slid down and reached the smooth floor with a definitive bang. Jinx ran forward and threw herself into it, but it was no use – the mechanism was solid… like stone.  
>Stone, stone and more stone. Very imaginative. <p>

"Sayron will chop you to pieces and he´ll get the Stones back! And then he´s going to sail on to Everlight and murder your entire race!" 

Light footsteps distanced themselves from the door. Jinx slid down against the wall. Above her head, the light streamed in through a small glassless window, but she´d never fit though there. On top of that, her hands were still bound. 

They´d let her keep the sword. 

She swore. That was of no use either. It was still sheathed, and it was stuck. The leather was so new she couldn´t shake it out. She tried to pull the rope loose or break it, but it was tough and strong. 

Would a simple piece of rope and a stone door keep her in here until Sayron had sailed on and she was left to rot? It wouldn´t, right? 

She´d seen the blue Stone standing in the temple, of the same design as the red one but with a magnificently azure glow. But if Sayron came to get it… would she dare call out to him? How would he react to her barging in again this time?

There were three elves remaining and that was enough to be able to go on, so Sayron did, climbing the stairs and battling them at the same time. The temple appeared from behind the trees. 

Higher and higher they climbed. Sayron was now bleeding from several deep sword wounds on his arms, but with the entire horde around him, no elf would get the chance to do any real damage. Fifteen Minions fell before they finally reached the temple. 

A new wave of elves, led by an individual with brown hair and blue eyes, came rushing down the stairs to meet them. The blue-eyed elf ran straight for Sayron, but the Overlord had raised his axe and forced the elf to break off his attack. As he ran past him, Sayron let his magic fly and the elf´s legs were scythed away from under him. His head smacked onto the hard marble of the stairs. 

Sayron strode towards him through the chaos and grabbed a leg. For a few seconds, he swung Chador around above his head, then he tossed him over the cliff. A nauseating smack was heard as the elf hit the rocks below. The Overlord laughed softly. As with Empire soldiers, elves needed a leader. Now Chador was dead, they started getting doubtful, and that was fatal even for elves. 

After a few minutes of fighting the entire horde could afford amusing themselves with the last elf´s struggles, whose head was on fire while six browns decorated his back. Finally, after a surprisingly long fight, he fell down. 

The temple was theirs! 

Sayron called his Minions to him and strode inside. There, the blue Key Stone was waiting for them. Azure light played over the many statues of the Mother Goddess. For the briefest moment, the Overlord thought he could hear pounding, like fists to rock, but then it stopped. 

Five Minions hoisted the Stone onto their shoulders. 

Outside, a strange platform stuck out from the stairs. On the end was a strange hole, which´d fit a Key Stone by the look of it. As Sayron tested it, the platform sank down. 

"An elevator, Sire. Who´d think elves would think it up?" 

As the platform rose again, all Minions had the chance to step on. 

All, except two.

The large square in Nordberg was no longer full of people. Most of the people were lying, often in pools of blood. Some were stumbling off into the alleys. Some were still standing, and all of them were around a man whose former visible skin was bandaged to the very last centimetre. 

Kivner looked around the small group. "I´m sorry it had to be this way." 

"No. That was fine. Now we finally saw who still needed to be persuaded." 

"You´re right. I hope everyone now knows what they´re supposed to do," the ginger man said with a glance around the square. The moon glistened on the remains of the bloodbath.

Fifty Minions could do gruesome things to an unarmed group of people. 

One of the others nodded curtly. "I think Nordberg could use a little change. The ice disappearing was a sign we have to adapt, too. I propose we send a message to the Overlord we´re really going to help him. Ore, food…" 

Kivner nodded vigorously. "Yes! That´s the thing!" 

Running footsteps resounded across the moonlit square stones. A small figure threw herself into Kivner and punched both her fists against his chest, crying. "How could you, Kivner! All those deaths… all that murdering…" 

He grabbed her wrists as gently as he could and then wrapped his arm around her. "It was necessary, Estua." 

"I don´t recognize you anymore!" Estua tried to pull herself loose, but her body was shaking with sobs. "You´re not yourself…" 

"I didn´t cause this," Kivner said. "They brought it upon themselves. Estua, you´re not telling me you agree with those who lay here dead, are you?" 

A hooded figure who´d been following Estua in a calmer pace reached the group. Several of the men looked up and nudged each other, chuckling. The woman ignored them. "He´s right, love. A new power has risen, and where you served the Empire in the past, you´re now to serve Lord Sayron." She winked. "Of course, there are rewards for those starting with that. You´ve got some future ahead of you, Kivner." 

He looked at her. "I´m not after that."

The woman rolled her eyes. "Come with me. I´ve got to talk to you." 

Estua ran after her as she walked off with large steps. "Who are you?" 

"Call me Nessuna."

Kniff and Parch silently sprinted back into the temple. Past a couple of elven corpses was a large statue of the Mother Goddess, her arms crossed and her hands holding the two knives. 

Kniff carefully approached the statue. "…Jinxie?" 

"Kniff?" a muffled voice sounded from behind the wall. "Is that you?" 

"Jinxie!" the Minion laughed. "Yep! Parch here too!" 

"You´re in the horde! Well done, Parch!" Behind the door, Jinx felt her heart rise in her chest. Two of her friends had come for her. She´d see Kniff again. "Kniff, the goddess´ knives are the key. You have to…" 

On the other side, Kniff didn´t wait for her to finish and jumped to the knife in the Mother Goddess´ left hand. Her arm sank. 

A gigantic axe whirred from a hidden opening and nearly decapitated the brown Minion. 

"What was that?" 

"Not that knife," Kniff said sheepishly while scrambling back to his feet and rubbing his throat. He jumped again and grabbed the other knife. Jinx rammed her shoulder into the door. "No, Kniff! Don´t!" 

The right arm sank. This time, enormous steel spikes shot out of the ground where the brown Minion was standing. Fortunately, Parch rapidly wrapped his tail around the now risen left arm of the statue and grabbed Kniff´s shoulders, dragging him to safety. A few seconds later, the right arm rose again as well and the spikes disappeared into the ground. The two Minions let themselves fall to the ground. 

"Both?" Parch proposed, grinning at Kniff. 

"Both," Jinx agreed with a relieved sigh, glad they were both still alive. 

"Right then," Kniff chuckled. He and Parch both took a jump at the knives. The Mother Goddess´ arms sank both at the same time, and the stone door rolled upwards. Jinx staggered out. 

"Tadaa," she grinned. 

"Jinxie!" 

"I´m happy to see you too, Kniff," she said, slightly choked by the Minion´s grip around her neck. 

Parch snorted. "Is still bound, idiot! Cut ropes!" 

Kniff let go and drew his dagger. He started slicing away at the ropes. However, Jinx stepped back before he could complete his work. "Not those. Those are mine." 

"Ropes?" 

"Yep." Jinx looked at Parch. "And I can´t thank you enough for that, friend." 

Parch beamed. Kniff was still confused. "What they for?" 

"Come on outside." 

The three of them walked through the temple and back to the cliffs. Deep below them, Sayron´s ship sailed past, on its way to a safe place to spend the night. It was no use to try and search the jungle for Key Stones at night. And by the look of the threatening clouds, the elves wouldn´t be able to do much either. There was a shred of rain season coming their way. 

"Watch closely, Kniffy." Jinx cast out a rope to a thorny tree growing out of the cliff beneath them. She wrapped the rope around her wrist tightly and let herself fall. 

"Jinxie! No!" 

"Hahahaa!" 

Kniff looked on, wide-eyed, as Jinx came flying back up, winked at him and swooped down again. She made another two vertical circles around the tree, landed on the cliff and pulled her rope free. 

Kniff stood yawning at her for a moment. Then he punched Parch´s shoulder. "Changed! Ha!" 

Parch spread his hands in apology. "Wanted it herself, Kniff. She learned more. You were gone long…" 

But the brown was jumping around in joy. "If you not get spot in horde… I´m eating my hat!" 

"I´m keeping you to it. I´ve had training with Giblet." 

Kniff stood still, so abruptly he almost fell over. "Giblet…" 

"Yup," Jinx nodded with a grin. "And Parch can tell you how many times that brute completely beat the living..." 

An enormous roar rolled across the bay and cut off her words. The three of them cringed. Parch looked at the sky, where the dark clouds closed in, grumbling menacingly. "Going to rain," the red spoke, a quiver in his voice. 

Jinx looked down. The ship still was close to their island. "Go. Go back to Sayron before you´re extinguished!" 

Parch climbed down along the cliff. He looked back up. "Kniff." 

The brown took a step back. 

"Kniff…" 

"Tell them I got killed by last elf." 

"Disobedient!" 

He grinned. "Coming back from the grave tomorrow."

On the south side of the bay, high on the cliffs above the water, a tiny light flashed through the darkened sky. In the north, something blinked back. 

Morvan, keeper of the green Key Stone, let himself slide down with his back against the rock. "Jared´s leaving his Stone where it is. He´s afraid it´ll fall and break if the soil changes into mud and the cliffs get slippery." 

"He´s got a point," another elf agreed. "It´s useless to try and get the Stones over the gate now, and besides, the Overlord has to sleep sometime…" 

Morvan looked down from his vantage point high above the bay. He couldn´t see the ship anywhere. The red and blue Stones glowed with a challenging light from within their slots, weakening the Reef Gates. "I doubt that, but don´t try to get those two back. If he´s hiding somewhere, it´s there, watching them. We have to focus on what we do have." 

"We trust in you, Morvan." 

"Let´s go and find somewhere to shelter from the rain."

On the west side of the bay something dark jumped through the tree tops like obscure lightning. It consisted of two creatures, the both of them fully aware it´d be wiser to keep quiet. Still the reefs resounded with laughter and cheering, so loud the birds getting ready for the night felt themselves forced to take flight again, and the early creatures of the night chattered angrily wherever they went. 

Kniff grabbed Jinx´ shoulders and the leather sheath on her back fiercely with all his claws. He let himself be swept along, wide-eyed with excitement, feeling like he finally wasn´t jealous of the reds anymore. 

Jinx flew through the canopy, for the first time with no other purpose than just having fun.  
>She swung around a broad, parasite-covered tree, avoided the dangling air roots attempting to hit her in the face and climbed to the top with three jumps, where the branches were thin and the trunk was swaying gently. There, she let her legs down and sat on a branch, looking out over the bay. Kniff let himself slide off her back. He looked straight ahead for a moment, to where the final rays of the setting sun illuminated the Reef Gates and a pale moon rose above Everlight. <p>

"Every sunset is the beginning of a magnificent night," Jinx spoke, peeling a banana. She handed one to Kniff as well. 

Kniff nodded, a broad grin appearing on his face. "Missed you, Jinxie." 

"Me too. That´s why I´ve been training. Now no one will ever get me out of the horde again, and I hopefully won´t have to fight you. Unless you´re leader already, of course…" 

The brown Minion laughed. "Not by long shot. But I´ve been fighting and now Cleft and Raw are beneath me!" 

"Well done!" Jinx slapped his shoulder. "Keep it up!" 

Another thunderstroke ripped the sky above the reefs apart. Immediately, the rain came pouring down and within two seconds Kniff and Jinx were both soaked. 

They looked at each other. Then they both burst out laughing. 

"Climb on, I´ll get us back to the temple where we can shelter." 

Kniff did as she asked and hooked his claws around Jinx´ back again. She threw out her ropes in the whirling rain, trusting the position of a thick branch she´d spotted in the light of the last lighting. As they soared through the air, Jinx noticed it was trickier than she´d thought, because the wind had risen by now and the branches weren´t always where she thought them to be. Kniff tightened his grip. 

"Don´t worry, buddy. I won´t let us fall." 

Their way to the temple led them across a broad stream close to the bay. Jinx knew she´d have to watch out here, so she aimed for a statue of a hooded elf that couldn´t move in the wind. She shivered. After such a hot day, she hadn´t thought it could be as cold as this in the reef, but with soaked clothes and pouring rain it could perfectly well. 

The rope pulled taut. Jinx jumped off their branch and swung to the island where the temple was situated. 

Halfway through their sweeping arch, they were swinging up again, and that was when it happened. The square knot that had served her faithfully for months was now wet and slippery and most of all old. The rope had thinned around the knot already, and now it had had enough. Jinx´ left rope snapped. 

The two fell down to the bay, some meters lower, and hit the hazy waves with a splash inaudible above the roar of the rain, wind and thunder. 

Jinx disappeared below the surface for a moment, but then came up again, gasping for breath. The water was suddenly cold as well. Kniff´s claws were now gripping her with such force she knew she´d end up with some new scars. "Hold on, Kniff!" she yelled. "I´m swimming to the shore. It´ll be all right." 

Kniff´s ears lay close against his head. The Minion clearly was afraid. Water was one of few things able to really terrify a brown Minion. He looked about him, his eyes darting over the waves surrounding him on all sides. "Quick then!" 

Jinx swam to the angular piers of the temple island as fast as she could. It shouldn´t be hard to haul them on it, and then it´d be a matter of going up and making a fire in the temple…  
>Kniff´s grip tightened even further. Then the brown Minion was dragged off her back.<br>"KNIFF!" she roared. She turned with a kick of her legs and looked around wildly. Then she saw a glitter above the waves, and an orange fishtail hit the water with a loud slap. A mermaid. 

"Give him back, overgrown mackerel!" She threw herself forward and dived into the salt water, furiously searching for a trace of glowing eyes in the darkness and hoping Kniff still had them open. Inside, she was screaming in rage. Why did everything she came across have to be a nuisance? 

Something fleshy rammed her in the chest and she shot back to the surface like a cork. As she blinked the salt from her eyes she could just see an orange tail disappearing, but this couldn´t be the same mermaid, because she couldn´t see Kniff anywhere… 

He had to be alive! 

Something occurred to her. Would Sayron bother to bring the lower Minions from his horde back from the Well? 

No! It wouldn´t get that far. She breathed in deeply and dived again. The moonlight shining from beneath the clouds glittered on the surface above her and formed a pale fan in the dark water. 

A bloated form silhouetted itself against the fan. 

Jinx kicked her legs and swam towards it. The form stopped and turned. The light shone on a deformed face with a broad mouth and black eyes. The pudgy hands had closed themselves around the arms of a brown Minion with closed eyes. 

Jinx lowered her shoulder and swam into the mermaid. The fish creature raised her tail and tumbled forward, opening her mouth and closing it around Jinx´ arm. The broad lips parted to reveal razor-sharp teeth. 

Jinx trashed with her good arm. The mermaid´s bite grew deeper and a cloud of blood floated up. Then a larger cloud followed, paler now, almost pink. The mermaid became limp. The diamond-shaped point of Sayron´s sword was protruding from her back. 

Jinx pulled the sword back, pleasantly surprised she´d been able to find enough strength to deal a deadly stab in water, and grabbed Kniff before the mermaid could drag him with her in her descend to the bottom. 

Some moments later, Jinx threw herself on the stones of the temple island, panting. The rain was still beating down, with such force it hurt her head and bare arms. Kniff lay next to her, and he still wasn´t moving. 

A splash sounded from the water behind her. 

Jinx rolled over, to see the second mermaid jumping at her, her maw open and her hands ready to grab her and the Minion again and drag them below the surface forever.  
>In some way her hands managed to find the remaining rope and she snared the fish creature at the throat. The mermaid´s leap became an inelegant flight ending against the rock face. Before the stunned creature could regain herself, Jinx had placed a foot on the bloated stomach and Sayron´s gargantuan blade separated the misshapen head from the torso. <p>

Jinx panted and let the sword clatter from her hands. 

The raindrops crept across the glistening steel and reflected the moonlight. The sword was still lying there as she scooped Kniff up and carried him up the stairs.

**O.O (Dramatic gasp) wow. Cliff hanger and then some. To be honest I'm not really a fan of the elves either. But regardless hope you enjoyed. Please review people.**


	8. Key Stones Part 2

**Part 2 of this chapter. All credit goes to Sunjinjo**

Parch let his heartbeat calm down below deck, where the Minions slept. He had been standing far too close to the deck for some time, where the rain was now pounding the wood with the force of a sledgehammer. Sayron had regretted the fact Kniff was dead.  
>The red Minion pressed himself into the back wall as far as he could, where some more wood distanced him from the rain in the form of the aft castle, where Sayron slept. He shook his head wearily. <em>Kniff, you´re crazy to stay outside.<em>

A dripping silhouette staggered up the last steps and cast a dark shadow into the temple as the lightning flashed once more. Once inside, Jinx let herself fall to her knees immediately and laid Kniff on the stone floor. He did have a pulse, but it was irregular. His breathing was barely noticeable either. 

Jinx stood up again and staggered out of the temple. Outside, she cast out her remaining rope and swung up into the trees. 

A few minutes later, she landed again. She almost fell, but she was holding the limp body of a small monkey. Its neck was broken. Jinx carried the animal inside and laid it next to Kniff. Then she used her dagger to cut open the monkey´s chest. A soft golden light illuminated the temple in an eerie way. Life force. 

She plucked the glowing core of the light from the monkey´s body, laid it on Kniff´s chest and pushed. 

All the time, her own breathing had been rapid. She hadn´t taken the trouble of healing her own wounds. The mermaid´s bite was a circle of angry teeth marks on her upper arm. A misty haze was hanging in front of her eyes. Weren´t many tropical fish poisonous? 

The life force disappeared into Kniff´s chest. For a moment, all was quiet. 

The Minion sighed, then gasped and rolled over. His eyes opened slowly. 

Next to him, Jinx fell over to her side and stayed that way. Her eyes were staring into nothingness and her breathing remained way too fast. 

Kniff pushed himself up and laid her on her back. He bent over her and looked into her eyes. 

"Jinxie…?"

"Jinxie." 

Yellow eyes swam in front of hers. She was faintly aware of the fact she should answer, but everything was strangely hazy and her mouth didn´t work properly. She´d been able to save him. That was enough. Now she could do nothing anymore. 

"Jinxie!" 

The glowing eyes disappeared into a whirlpool of dark water. An enormous monster with blue eyes and the pointy ears of an elf tied her hands together and to her feet and then threw her into the depths, where she was swept along immediately. Along the shores of the river, people in white togas were standing, jeering at her. A man and a woman looked at her, silent and satisfied. Another woman, barely visible, outstretched her hands to her, crying. 

"Witch! Witch!" 

She tried to scream, but she couldn´t do that either, because a mermaid dragged her below the surface and hit her with her tail so she gained even more speed. The wild water swept her along to an immeasurable darkness full of fiery stars, where a stalactite jabbed down. A black dragon with three heads flew circles around the stalactite and then soared towards her. Enormous claws plucked her from the river and threw her down, where an orange glow was emanating up from the heart of the world. 

Orange eyes in invisible faces were staring at her from all sides. She knew she had to hide, she couldn´t allow the eyes to see her, but how could she hide if they were everywhere and she was falling to her death? 

The eyes flowed together and became elongated and yellow, in a pitch-black face. 

"Find me." 

And she tumbled down, with bound hands and feet, and there was no river and no net to catch her, and no blue Minion to save her if she died. 

"Jinxie."

In the captain´s cabin, in the bed he barely fit in, Sayron´s impressive body rolled over. He growled for a moment. In the gauntlet of his armour, taken off and lying some meters away, the amber gem lit up. 

For the briefest moment there seemed to be two yellow eyes staring at the sleeping Overlord. A shadow passed through the cabin and the rushing of leathery wings resounded; then it was gone and the Overlord´s dark dreams returned to their usual state.

Back at the Tower, Gnarl watched the mist pool fade out. He turned away, a strange hollow feeling in his stomach. Two Key Stones in place. Then why did he feel this way? 

Kniff wasn´t dead, he knew that much. Something had been set in motion. 

Something had been set in motion as soon as Mortis had laid his eyes on the drowned girl with the black hair, the girl Gnarl still knew he recognized something about. 

He descended the stairs to the lower regions, feeling as if someone was watching over his shoulder.

At the base of the rocks, the sword still lay glistening in the pale rays of the enormous tropical moon. 

Something jumped to the ground, silent on bare feet. Violet eyes flashed and a jump later the sword was gone. 

Some more jumps, and the two Key Stones were standing a few centimetres further up the piers. The Reef Gates closed entirely again, with an almost inaudible click.

The rain had stopped. 

In the pale light now hesitantly pouring into the temple, a little brown Minion was nervously walking circles, making his stretched shadow play across the inside of the cold stone building. From the jungle, a massive blanket of mist was rising up, the result of all the fallen water now warming up. Much of the world outside was white, and the bay and Reef Gates were barely visible. 

In the most sheltered corner of the temple lay a stiff form, one arm laid across the chest. The arm was black and swollen, and rust-coloured drops crept down from a circle of teeth marks halfway. The sick tissue went on across Jinx´ chest and it was creeping up her neck as well. 

Kniff glanced back and continued walking circles, trying hard not to look down to what he was holding in both his claws. It was his jagged dagger. He hadn´t had the courage all night. Now Jinx still wasn´t awake. Maybe he´d have to do it after all, before it really was too late.  
>Strange. He´d cut off limbs so many times without even giving it thought. But now it´d be like amputating his own arm. <p>

Mutilated Minions were thrown out of the horde most of the time, and in most cases they died soon afterwards. Quaver was an exception. After he lost his eye he´d become a bard, as the position was vacant and he was quite the Minion for the job. 

Kniff felt nauseous with the idea of mutilating Jinx. But if she´d live it´d maybe be worth it.  
>He turned and approached her. Her breathing was shallow and her breath smelled strange. Kniff noticed a moving haze on her arm, like gleaming northern lights. He looked at it for a moment, hoping it might be magic, but it hadn't made any difference for the entire night.<br>He took his dagger in his right hand and swallowed. Then he knelt next to her, laid her arm next to her body and tied her remaining rope tightly around her shoulder to cut off the bloodstream. 

He looked at the dagger. It was very jagged, made to slice seal meat in Nordberg. It would be messy if he tried amputating her arm with this. But Jinx' own dagger was just like it, and the sword was gone. Kniff shivered. Both the Master and Giblet would have them drawn and quartered for that. 

He took a firm grip on the tainted arm and put the dagger to Jinx' shoulder, just below the rope. And pushed, with a sawing movement.

Nessuna's house was, on the outside, like any other in Nordberg – low, with a thick straw roof. On the inside however… 

It was dark. The heavy curtains only let in a tiny chink of light, giving the place a suffocating atmosphere. The walls were dark and hung with strange objects. On a large table, some black candles stood burning. There was no fireplace, very strange for a Nordbergian house, but still it was very warm, and in some way Kivner knew it'd been warm during the winter, too. 

There were dried plants hanging from some of the ceiling beams. He was certain they weren't Nordbergian. Some stuffed animals stared at him and Estua with glassy eyes. As he looked harder he could see it weren't common animals. There were humanoids among them, some gnomes, but also a fairy with leaf-like wings and black eyes. They didn't show any signs of violence like stitched arrow wounds or the like. 

Kivner caught a glance of a large four-poster bed through a half-opened door. It was round, there were three metal spikes sticking up at the foot, and above the head was a horned skull of hammered steel, hanging from chains. The cushions and blankets seemed to be remarkably soft and expensive, however. 

He turned to the woman, who'd taken off her hood. He estimated her to be in her forties, but she was very pretty. "Who _are_ you?" 

She threw her cloak over a chair. "I've just told you, darling. My name's Nessuna." 

"Where are you from?" 

She looked at him and pursed her lips. "Ask no strange questions, receive no strange answers. Now, the reason I've invited you here is simple. You're headed for a nice spot at the Overlord's feet, but you have no idea how to handle this sort of thing." 

"And you do?" 

Nessuna smiled, a cold smile that made shivers run down even Kivner's back. It was the smile a snake would give a rabbit. "More than you'd believe." 

For the first time since they'd entered, Estua opened her mouth. "Forgive me, but how could a whore help us with this?" 

Nessuna looked at her, her grey eyes glistening. "Oh, I might be a practiser of the nightly arts, but I'm more than just a whore, darling. Now, sit." 

The two obeyed her immediately. Nessuna lowered herself in a velvet-lined chair and crossed her legs. "For a start, you can't speak to the crowds like this." 

Kivner brought a hand to his bandaged face and lowered his eyes. 

Estua sat up straight in her chair. "You mean..." 

Nessuna smiled thinly. "People aren't supposed to fear _you_, Kivner." 

"But it was Lord Sayron who did this to me..." 

"Being his loyal servant I'm sure you can accept help if it's offered you. Stay with me for a while and I'll make sure you regain your full powers of... _persuasion_."

There was a red parrot, sitting on the very tip of the mast, even above the ragged red flag he´d tied to it after they´d looted the precious fabrics from the Empire galleon. 

The bird cawed softly and fluttered its wings, but it stayed where it was. For a regular animal, that wouldn´t be that smart when a brown Minion with a rather large sword between his teeth was climbing towards it. 

Scabies´ claws pulled grooves in the mast as he hauled himself up. A moment later, he swung his legs around the tip of the mast and reached out to the parrot. The bird examined him for a moment, the black bandana tied over his ears, the other sword that was tied to his back. And hopped over to the Minion´s tanned shoulder. 

Scabies sheathed his second sword on his back and laughed happily. 

From the rigging, a coconut came whirring towards him, hitting him square between the eyes and causing him to come crashing down from the mast. The parrot elegantly took flight and followed its new owner down in a rather calmer pace. It landed on a rope which Scabies was now hanging from by one foot and a knee, shaking his fist at another Minion, higher up in the rigging. 

"Get that one back! Stuff it in yer _trap_, Gloob!" 

"Good luck," the other large Minion grinned. 

"Oh, you…" 

A sharp growl made the two look up abruptly. They immediately obeyed that voice. Stripe was looking on intently from the rigging at the ship´s prow. 

Scabies carefully untied himself from the ropes. After some seconds of struggle, he smacked down to the deck, looking up to the leader of his horde. "What you see, Stripe?" 

The biggest Minion turned. "Straight ahead. Mast," his voice rasped. 

They were sailing right in the middle of the bay now, in front of the Reef Gates. Before their prow lay the stretch of land supporting one side of the doors, forming a natural cave at water level, but it was blocked with several big rocks. They seemed like they´d been placed there on purpose. 

As Gloob and Scabies were watching, something thrust aside those rocks. They both recognized it to be a dragon´s head, but this one was made of elven steel and attached to another ship´s prow. 

At the helm, Sayron tensed. And in the Tower, Gnarl suddenly was all attention. 

"Look, Sire! The yellow Key Stone! They must have thought we wouldn´t be here this early!" 

"Why sailing?" Gloob asked. Next to him, Scabies rubbed his claws together. "Doesn't matter! We hijack ship, keelhaul elfies, make off with booty!" He grinned something deserving the rare title of a monstrously big grin. 

Gnarl studied the ship for a moment. It was large and elegant, befitting of the elves, and it had large dark sails and a battering ram at the front, shaped like a dragon´s head. It still was rather far away from them and it was sailing fast. If they weren´t careful, it might just succeed in escaping them. "I don´t think they´re trying to sail through the gates…"

Jared turned the magnificently carved wheel sharply. Something was approaching from the mist, and it wasn´t good. The blond elf knew he ought to fear the Nordbergian ship far more than whichever enormous Empire galleon. 

He whistled. From the rigging, other elves let themselves fall down to the deck. "I see," one of them nodded. 

Jared clenched his teeth. "I didn´t hear from Nadir or Chador anymore." 

"Morvan was signalling last night." 

"Yes, and that´s why we have to give everything we´ve got to get the Stone to him. He´s guarding the only place where we can get the Stone over the gates." He looked back, to the Stone with the gold-coloured glow emanating from the eyes and mouths, firmly tied to the deck. Then he turned back to the approaching Nordbergian ship with the clearly visible heathen demons jeering at them from the rigging, and the even clearer shadow at the helm.  
>"If the Mother Goddess is with us, the <em>Horizonbreaker<em> fulfils the purpose she was built for, and she´ll outrun that demon."

"The Unholy God is with us, Sire, you´ve got enough red Minions with you." 

Parch beamed. He´d be in the spotlights, already! He was standing on deck with the rest of his clan, fireballs at the ready, looking on expectantly at the elven ship sailing past them and waiting for it to be close enough. 

"Show me burning sails," Gnarl snickered. Sayron gave the command. 

Parch lobbed his fire like he´d never done before. His sparks landed in the carefully tended and dried sail, lighting up like small, deadly stars. The sparks thrown by Hoarse, Smoky, Blister and the others joined his. The elves, however, whistled rather than screaming, and jumped to the sails like one to extinguish the starting fire. The ship sailed on, and Sayron had to turn the wheel as fast as he could to keep up. 

"Row, guys! All to the oars, you too, Scabies!" 

Scabies jolted. He´d been standing at the prow, his head full of sails, flags and nautical chases. He pulled his bandana over one eye and quickly ran to the oars below deck, the parrot fluttering behind him. 

With just Sayron and the reds on deck, an exhausting pursuit started. The elven ship was fast, so fast the Nordbergian often could barely keep up. From time to time, the Overlord thought they´d never succeed, when the dark, bat-like sail almost disappeared in the rising mist or behind a curve in the unpredictable maze of islands. 

But the elves were far off-course. They simply tried getting away from Sayron now and after a while they didn´t work with enough caution anymore. 

Before their prow, the reefs opened up. They´d returned to the bay. 

The elven ship tried turning around to plunge into another stream at the west side of the gates, but before they could do so the Nordbergian ship was upon them and the reds finally could throw all the fire they wanted. It was raining magical sparks, and now the browns also came up from below deck to keep the elves occupied. The sails finally ignited. The elven ship wouldn´t be that swift anymore. 

The Overlord waited until the Minions had pulled the two ships together close enough, and then stepped over himself. He brushed away two elves, both hung with fighting Minions, and stepped straight towards the blond elf at the helm. 

Jared swallowed and drew his sword. He knew very well he didn´t stand a chance anymore. He glanced at the waves nervously. Was that an orange tail? 

Sayron gripped the elf´s throat. "Fleeing from me is useless. So is fighting back." 

With those words, he threw the elf overboard, where the mermaids raged out their anger for two lost sisters. Very soon, there was nothing left to be seen, except a couple of ominous bubbles in the misty water. 

The Overlord turned around to the rest of the broad deck. The last burning elf sunk down and got thrown into the sea by four proud Minions. The yellow Stone gleamed in the morning light. 

"Well, well. You seem to have a talent for piracy, Sire." 

Gnarl´s gaze was drawn to a single Minion, sheathing his two blades on his back and coaxing his parrot to return to his shoulder with a loud ´arrr´. "But what´d you expect with Minions like that in your horde."

A scream echoed around the top of one of the islands. If you looked hard enough, you might make out a temple on it. 

The scream went on for some time, then it died away in a series of feverish sobs and moaning. 

Then it went silent. 

Then a very soft sound could be heard. It was creaking, slightly nauseating. It was the sound of healing bone that might have been sawed in. 

In the temple´s interior, Kniff sat on his knees, watching with wide eyes as patches of healthy skin appeared on Jinx´ black arm. Blood flowed from the wound he´d inflicted upon her, but the wound was busy closing up – bone, muscle, flesh and skin. Jinx herself barely seemed to notice anything of this. Her eyes were half-open, but only the white was visible. She was entirely limp. 

The last of the black disappeared from her skin. The wound closed up to a gash several centimetres wide, still slowly leaking blood. The rope he´d tied around her arm fell to the stone temple floor. 

Kniff bowed his head. His ears pointed down respectfully. "Mistress," he muttered with a quivering voice. "Forgive me." 

The rope flicked out and wrapped itself around his throat. He choked as his head was pulled down. 

When he was at her eye level, Jinx opened her eyes and looked at him. "Don´t you dare say that again, Kniff. Ever." 

"J…Jinx?" 

"That´s Jinxie to you..." She closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed to a rhythm telling him she was unconscious again. 

Kniff carefully untied the rope from this throat and stood up. He picked up his dagger and looked at the sleeping body. 

He´d keep watch over her as long as he needed to.

The elven ship obeyed him as if it was a dream. Sayron was standing at the helm, a big grin on his face, letting his gaze travel along the white sails they´d taken off the Nordbergian ship and attached to the bat-like side masts of the _Horizonbreaker_. This ship was swifter, more manoeuvrable and stronger. He didn´t like to admit it, but the elves knew a thing or two. 

Right now, he was navigating the ship back to where Jared had come from – the overhanging rock on the south of the bay. He could already see the slot for the yellow Stone, overlooking the water from high above their heads. 

Then the view was obscured by a ceiling of rock, overgrown with upside down vines and flowers. The light reflected by the azure waters played over the leaves mysteriously.  
>He could see a stone dock, crumbled but useable. He steered the ship to the shore cautiously and docked. Five Minions took the Stone. <p>

Sayron looked around. He knew where the slot was, but how did he get there? On his left, where they´d come from and where the slot was overlooking the bay, was a steep rock face. On his right, a barely visible trail led into the jungle. 

Even if the reds could climb the rock face, they wouldn´t be able to take the Stone with them. 

The Overlord chose the path and walked into the jungle. A moment later the rustling undergrowth closed around the Stone. 

Five minutes later, Sayron had to admit he could very well be completely lost. Everywhere around him, walls of green rose, and the path was barely visible. More often than not, thorny plants grew over it, and he knew there could be an elven ambush waiting for him any moment now. He´d never admit it, but he felt vulnerable. 

He looked back. The Minions carrying the Stone were still following him. There was a red parrot sitting atop the Stone. 

Just as he was about to look forward again he slipped and fell face-down in the sand.  
>Wait... sand? <p>

He pushed himself up on his arms and looked up. Straight into the black eyes of a mermaid sunning herself on the small beach. The beach and water ahead were teeming with more.

The Overlord swallowed. 

So that was the reason they hadn´t run into any elves yet. This island was defended by something else. 

"Oh, the world for a pile of potatoes and a bucket of vinegar," Gnarl sighed. 

"Not funny, Gnarl!" 

"Excuse me, Sire." 

The mermaid snapped at him. Sayron quickly scrambled to his feet and cut her in half with three strokes of his axe. The tail end continued to wriggle for several seconds. 

The other mermaids screeched an awfully high cry of fury. They swam to the beach and started to haul themselves onto the sand. The red Minions threw fire at them, but they refused to ignite. The browns approached them carefully. Being pulled under was the last thing they wanted. Swords, daggers, axes and clubs were swung at the fish creatures. In the end, it was Scabies' twin swords doing the most damage, and his parrot pecking at the mermaids' eyes. Sayron waded into the water and made sure not all of them could reach his Minions at once. 

He caught a flash in the corner of his eye, green on green. He turned. 

Four elves were using the confusion to try and make off with the Stone. 

"Minions! Back to the Stone!" he yelled. He turned back to the water, just in time to whack a jumping mermaid aside. His axe got stuck in the rough scales and he fell into the water as well. A moment later he hauled himself to his feet, dripping wet and still wrestling the mermaid. 

A couple of Minions hurried after the Stone. They jumped onto the elves' shoulders, and one of the reds climbed over their backs to the flat top of the Stone, where he could aim for the tops of their heads. Before long, the elves were forced to let go of the Stone. 

"Hey!" 

Raw looked up, his long knife gripped in his claw. High in a tree, almost perfectly camouflaged save his black hair, was an elf with a bow. 

One second later, the Minion didn't see anything at all because of the arrow that'd buried itself between his eyes and into his head.

Mortis pulled himself out of the river, dripping with icy water. He shook himself, dry within seconds thanks to his smooth, waterproof skin. He pulled his cloak on and raised the hood.  
>A lighting form drifted past him and dived into the Well. Mortis went after it and looked down. <p>

"Raw," he said, shaking his head wearily. "I think I'm going to install a revolving door, just for you."

Sayron ripped his axe from the mermaid's carcass and waded from the water, his feet sopping in his heavy boots. He was walking as fast as he could, however. 

"You there! Let go of that Stone!" 

The black-haired elf stopped winching in the rope for a moment, attached to a wheel on a higher branch and supporting a net containing the yellow Stone. Violet eyes pierced Sayron's. "Why should I?" 

"The thing's mine." Sayron let the blue lightning ignite around his arm. 

"I see I don't stand a chance," the elf spat, his voice dripping with poison. He let go of the rope and jumped away, just as the lightning struck on his branch. A faraway rustling and he was gone. 

"Good. Get the Stone and let's get out of here."

Beyond the beach, the path miraculously continued. It led them up across the island in a wide arch, and gradually closer to the spot they wanted to get to. Eventually, they reached an elevator much like the one they'd encountered with the blue Key Stone. The Minions placed the Stone in the hole and let themselves be taken up with their Master. From there, the slot was clearly visible. A minute later, a golden light flamed across the length of the overhanging rock and illuminated the bay. 

Sayron looked out over the water. Straight in front of them was another overhanging rock where the slot for the green Stone was located. 

"Hmm…" 

"Do you see what I see, Sire?" 

"The light from the red and blue Stones is gone." 

"One of those reckless elves must have given them a shove. Let us go and do something about it." 

"_I'm_ going to go and do something about it. You'll continue sitting next to the throne." 

"You mustn't take me so literally, Sire."

A red flash lit up the fading mists. Kniff saw it happening from the temple entrance.  
>Behind him, crouched but sitting up, Jinx was looking on. "They're back. You have to go to them, Kniff." <p>

The brown Minion silently looked down. A few minutes later, a blue flash followed. 

"Come on. Last chance." Jinx shifted. "I'll be okay. I'll get home. But you, Kniff… you have to go with the horde. Go." 

He looked back. His yellow eyes gleamed from underneath his hat. "Sure?" 

"Hey, don't feel bad because you nearly sawed my arm off." She snickered. "I'm fine. I command you to go, lunatic!" 

Kniff nodded with a lopsided grin. He raised his hat for a moment, turned and sprinted down the stairs. 

Jinx sighed and rubbed her arm. Her plans didn't quite work out as she'd thought. But luckily she was conscious again, though the Minion had had to nearly saw her arm off to break the poison sleep…  
>A golden light was playing over the south side of the bay. With the red and blue Key Stones in place, only one was left. Then the ship would be able to sail through the Reef Gates. Without her.<p>

Jinx painfully pulled herself to her feet.

The winds and waves effortlessly took the elven ship to the north side of the bay, where the empty slot was overlooking the water. The problem was, there wasn't such a nice entry as at the south. 

So Sayron and the horde sailed through the reefs, searching, close to the slot's island but further and further away from the bay in their attempt to gain entry to a piece of rock without beaches where they could dock, but with incredible amounts of sheer cliff.  
>Sayron looked about him. His eyes came to rest upon two pointy ears sticking up above the prow. He stretched his neck. "Is that a Minion standing on the dra- Ooo…" <p>

Scabies looked back and climbed back on deck. He´d been standing atop the dragon´s head, looking out over the water. He started to realize he wasn´t such an aquaphobe as the rest, a fact confusing him greatly. Now he was looking up to his Master expectantly. 

Sayron scanned his surroundings again, but with new eyes now. 

Yes, those rocks over there… 

He turned the wheel and sailed straight to the rock wall, consisting of relatively loose rocks, piled together to a height of one and a half meters above the water. 

The dragon´s head trust itself between them and wrenched the rocks apart. After half a minute of wrestling and furious rowing, the _Horizonbreaker_ sailed on without problems.  
>However, at the spot where it was easiest to dock, a straight-out war was going on. <p>

"Well, well," Gnarl said, amused. "And we didn´t even have to enter…" 

One side of the war consisted of elves. The other of Empire soldiers.

Kniff rowed himself silly. The Master hadn´t taken it well, him being reported as dead while he´d spent the entire night having fun on another island without so much as crying out across the water. So now, the little Minion was manning an oar all by himself. 

He couldn´t say he enjoyed it. He didn´t feel quite so good after being nearly – no, all drowned last night. He could imagine how Jinx felt right now, alone at the temple.  
>Then someone yelled for them to stop, and Kniff crossed his oar. He sped to the stairs and climbed on deck. There a true storm of weapons was raging. Kniff had to look twice before he realized none of them had gone ashore yet. <p>

Ooo… these were the shinies against the pointy-ears… 

This was something a Minion liked to see. Two groups of enemies trying to rip each other apart. Kniff rubbed his claws together and bared his pointy teeth in a grin. 

Sayron didn´t grin, because he was estimating the situation. It seemed the Empire was still winning. Their weapons were new, and made in large quantities, in contrast to the ancient elven swords. The soldiers were also wearing far better armour than the elves. 

"Look there! It´s the Demon Lord of Nordberg!" 

Ah. They´d been noticed. It wasn´t strange, really, as all Minions were on deck cheering for one of the fighting parties. That didn´t take away the fact the entire deck was bristling with arrows within two seconds, bearing both the red feathers of the Empire and the vivid parrot plumage of the elves. Scabies´ parrot cawed in disgust. 

"Sail a little way back into the bay, Sire. The only thing you need to do is watch," Gnarl snickered. "They tear each other's throats out where you´re standing!" 

Sayron let the Minions use the oars in reverse, so the ship pulled back out of range of every archer. He scanned the fight again. "It seems like the elves are defending something," he remarked. 

Gnarl was silent for a moment. Then: "Maybe they´re trying to make off with the green Stone…" 

"Over the Reef Gates?" 

"If I were an elf," the advisor shivered with disgust for a second, "I´d try to get that last Stone to Everlight." 

"We can send the reds down the cliff if we´re too late." 

"It´s unlikely they´ll want to climb above the ocean, Sire. They´ll be very nervous and won´t stand much of a chance in a fight." 

Sayron stared at the fight on the shore for a moment. "In that case, I hope that lot hurries murdering each other."

However much the Overlord thought of trying it, it would be utterly impossible for a Minion, or even a horde of them, to enter the fray and survive. When both the Empire and the elves would turn against them, as they would, the little creatures would get chopped to pieces in no time. The fact most of the horde now consisted of reds didn´t improve matters. 

What didn´t improve matter either was the fact that everyone was busy cutting all the others to tiny pieces on this small beach because they couldn´t go any further. Further in the jungle was a narrow path between two cliffs, both hung with bamboo platforms with elves on. The elves were busy keeping all unwanted trespassers away by throwing a strange fruit at them, certainly not coconuts, because as they hit the ground they erupted into a sickly green cloud, emanating an awful smell and causing even the most hardy soldiers to run the other way coughing, panting and with tears stinging their eyes. In most cases, they immediately impaled themselves on one of the many swords. 

Beyond the bottleneck the cliffs rose steeply, marble stairs leading up in their middle to the spot where Morvan was standing next to the green Key Stone. He peered down to the bay. There lay the Nordbergian ship. He didn´t see Jared´s ship anywhere. He was still waiting for the yellow Stone. But it wouldn´t take long for him to realize the Overlord was already on the island, and then he´d lower the Stone, whether Kamáel´s ship would be waiting or not.  
>Morvan turned sharply. There was some commotion with the poison throwers. The elves on the platforms didn´t have their attention with the soldiers trying to fight themselves up anymore, but with… yes, what was it, exactly? It was too fast to follow properly. It was a hazy brown flash swinging through the trees on a thread, letting loose green poison clouds without warning as it tossed the stolen fruit everywhere…<p>

"Sire! Look!" Gnarl called with urge. Sayron blinked. The screams of battle had changed tone. He narrowed his eyes. 

"What is happening there?" 

"Fleeing, cowardly landlubbers!" Scabies shouted. He laughed. "Gotten scared!" 

"All of them?" Gloob asked himself. 

Scabies turned to him. "What?" 

"Shinies _and_ pointy-ears running away." 

Scabies took a closer look at the fight. 

On his other side, Kniff was leaning on the rail with a grin. It was invisible to the untrained eye, but his eyes were trained. As he was watching, the barely visible figure of Jinx came sailing back to the trees at the shore with a new supply of poison fruit. Green clouds mushroomed up and elves and soldiers ran apart or jabbed around blindly. 

Sayron gave more sail. The ship drifted back to the shore. "I think we can dock safely…"  
>"It´s a miracle, but you won´t hear me complaining, Sire!"<p>

Jinx held a straight course for a second. She could feel herself wobbling on her rope. She wasn´t stable with just one, but she´d have to make do. Luckily she could spare her wounded arm, but the healing process continued just the same and she felt better and better. And those poison bombs were utter brilliance. She laughed as she chased another group of soldiers apart, swearing to every god they knew and just to be sure, Jinx heard, some Nordbergian gods, the Mother Goddess and the Forgotten God with them. She had the faint feeling another god was still missing out, but then she lobbed another bomb in the foolishly raised face of a brown-haired elf who clawed at his eyes a second later, bawling like a child. 

This was fun! She hadn´t had this much fun in ages! 

She looked ahead. "…Oh, shit." 

The Overlord was coming ashore. 

She flew into the canopy, found herself a broad branch and stayed there. Sayron could watch his own back from here.

The Overlord in question strode straight between the soldiers and elves, surprised but glad. Almost all of them were coughing, moaning and crying without watching their step and totally unaware of him and the Minions. The ones still able to see were ridiculously easy to kill. 

"You´ve got yourself a fan, Sire." 

"It seems to be so," Sayron muttered. He racked his memory for someone capable of swooping around invisibly, rapidly throwing poison fruit from above, but couldn´t think of anyone. Gnarl could, but he kept silent. To his own surprise, the elder Minion was smiling slightly. 

They reached the bottleneck. The elves on the platforms had all been strangled, with a rough rope by the look of their necks. Kniff had to clasp both his claws to his mouth to not burst out laughing. 

"Halt, demon!" 

"Why does everybody call me that?" Sayron asked himself as Morvan jumped out of the undergrowth, brandishing his sword. "Are you the guardian of the green Stone, elf?" 

Morvan bounced from one foot to the other nervously, his green eyes darting between the Overlord and the Minions. "Yes! Back or I´ll…" 

"And how many accompany you?" 

Morvan stopped bouncing and tried to look confident. He knew his last reinforcements were running around on the beach, howling in pain. 

Sayron raised a gauntleted hand and aimed for the elf´s forehead. A stream of blue sparks hit him between the eyes, Morvan became limp, and… 

"…I´ll do anything for you, my Lord," the elf spoke as he stood up straight again. 

"Good! Put the green Stone in place!" Sayron commanded triumphantly. "Four of you, go help him," he said with a gesture to his Minions.

An emerald flash lit the mists on the north side of the bay. 

The Reef Gates, whose opening and closing were memorable and rare events, shivered. The gigantic stone doors scraped together, rumbling with such a low sound it was felt rather than heard. The light of the passing morning played over the jaguar, the feathered snake, the blank eyes. Sixteen pairs of similar eyes looked on as the doors parted, glowing in four different colours. Sixteen gaping mouths sang a soundless song. 

The gates opened. 

Atop the overhanging rock in the north the Overlord looked on, the numb body of Morvan standing beside him. Sayron patted the elf on the shoulder. "Well done," he laughed. 

"You did it, Magnificent One!" 

"Thank you, Gnarl! I couldn´t have done it without you." 

_Or me_, Jinx thought, higher up the cliffs. She watched as Sayron and the horde turned and walked underneath her, back to the ship. She continued looking out over the bay for a second. She´d contributed more than before. Thanks to her, Sayron had been able to claim the red Stone without effort, as Nadir lay dead in the Empire camp. She´d beat the battle for the green Stone apart. She´d almost died, too, but that aside… 

She smiled as she heard the splashing of the oars. She ought to get going. She wanted to try and hide on the ship, to postpone the moment Sayron would discover her some more. She had to confess she didn´t have a plan concerning that… 

Sayron. 

The sword! 

Jinx felt her heart skip a beat. Her hand flew to the empty sheath on her back. She´d been so distracted by her fast recovery and Sayron´s success she hadn´t even noticed she´d forgotten the sword on the pier… 

In the meantime, the ship was sailing to the Reef Gates. She hurriedly stood up and wanted to cast out her rope. 

Light footsteps resounded on the overhanging rock beneath her. A black-haired elf came out from underneath the rock. 

Jinx gasped. There, tied to his back with still green vines… 

…was the sword. 

"Kamáel!" 

The elf´s head jerked up and he saw her. He bared his teeth in a grimace of surprise. "Who are you?" 

Jinx threw out her rope to his throat, but the elf swiftly dodged it and smashed his shoulder into the green Stone. It wobbled. 

"No!" 

Jinx looked about her in surprise. She hadn´t called out… 

Morvan shot out from beneath the rock and grabbed Kamáel´s arms. The two were wrestling so furiously they both nearly fell off the cliff. 

Then the sound of steel to flesh resounded and Morvan faltered. The jagged blade of Sayron´s sword was sticking out of his back, in the exact same way it had done with the mermaid. Jinx looked on wide-eyed. Kamáel´s face was expressionless. His violet eyes were cold as ice. 

He walked back to the Stone, as a large pool of blood spread around Morvans body. He put his shoulder against it and pushed. 

"No." 

It was her this time. Jinx let herself fall off the rock and stepped towards the elf. "No, you won´t do this. Not after all that´s been done to get things this way." 

The ship was sailing between the gates. 

Kamáel gave the Stone one last shove. It staggered, spun and slid out of the slot. The green glow faded. 

The Reef Gates shivered again. And started closing.

The waves closed in on the ship from all sides. Sayron looked around wildly. "What´s happening now, Vessperion´s blood?" 

"The Stones, Sire! The green Stone!" 

The Overlord looked up to the slot. The green light was gone. But there, atop the overhanging rock, were two struggling figures. 

Sayron looked at Kniff. The Minion seemed nailed to the deck. 

He realized. 

"Jinx…" 

"No time, Sire! Get out of there!" 

But even Gnarl could see the ship wouldn´t be able to get past the gates in time, nor could they turn back. They´d be crushed between the ancient stone doors.

Kamáel hit Jinx in the face and she stepped back. He towered over her, the gargantuan blade in his hand. She let her rope shoot out, snared the hand and pulled, but he didn´t let go of the sword. 

She looked down in panic. The gates kept closing! If she didn´t hurry… 

Her gaze lingered on the waters of the bay. 

She ran across the rock to the edge and leaped. 

For a second, Kamáel stared after her, then the rope pulled taut and his hand was yanked down. The rest of him followed. He staggered to the edge, struggling to keep upright as the sword clattered to the rock. "Let go, girl! I won´t kill you!" 

"I know! I also know the Overlord will!" Jinx called up. 

Kamáel flailed for a little bush growing out of the rock and tried to stay on. "Then why are you doing this?" 

Jinx kicked herself away from the rock and jerked and pulled like her life did depend on it. The gates were almost scraping the sides of the ship. 

Atop the rock, Morvans fingers trembled. He hauled up his upper body very slowly, blood gulping from his mouth, and let his fists descend on Kamáel´s fingers. 

The black-haired elf let go and fell down to the bay. Jinx let go of the rope just in time, smacked into the rock face and clung to it with her hands and feet. She scrambled up very quickly and sprinted for the Stone. She started banging her shoulder into it until it was one big bruise – and it clicked into the slot. 

Morvan lowered himself and sighed for the very last time. 

Jinx let her breath escape. 

Then she took the sword and climbed up over the rock face even further.

The wooden sides of the _Horizonbreaker_ had been stuck between the Reef Gates, but now the stone maw was opening again. The rock pulled back from the deep scratches on the ship´s prow. The wind filled the sails, and they sped up… 

At the Tower, Gnarl and Kelda breathed out. 

Sayron looked back to the small figure climbing the rocks and running over the open gates to the ship. The bright sunlight glinted off something tied to her back. 

Jinx jumped off the Reef Gates with spread arms and dived to the ocean in a free fall. A loud splash caused the water next to the ship to spray up. 

"Throw out a rope," Sayron said without looking away. A second splash told him the Minions had obeyed him. A moment later, they pulled her up, dripping, panting and grinning. 

"Greetings, Lord Sayron," Jinx said with a bow. 

He turned to face her. "What´s that on your back?" 

She reached backwards. "Your sword, Lord. Giblet´s forged it and I´ve come to deliver it. You´ll need it when we…" 

"You came after me again. You meddled with my business and my Minions. You have fought with a sword forged for me." 

"Um… yes, but…" 

"I´ve grown a bit tired of you, Jinx." Sayron raised a hand. Blue sparks whirled around it as he outstretched a finger to Jinx´ forehead. "I think I´m going to make you a bit easier to live with." 

"M-Master," Kniff muttered. Sayron ignored him. His orange eyes pierced Jinx´ as he let loose his magic. 

Jinx became limp and her eyes rolled upward.

**JINXIE! O.O Our master is going to turn her into a mindless zombie. Please review people, make sure you say if you want Sayron to turn her into a zombie or not**


	9. Shipwrecked

**Last time, the Reef Gates were opened, with a lot of help from Jinx. And her reward? Our Master is trying to turn her mind to mush. Enjoy. As per usual all credit for this story goes to Sunjinjo.**

Shipwrecked

Blue energy flamed from Jinx´ eyes. She slowly sunk to her knees, her arms hanging limp and her face raised to Sayron. 

Next to the Overlord, Kniff bit his fingers, hard. He felt torn. The need to help Jinx was almost as strong as the urge to obey Sayron. 

Jinx closed her eyes. Kniff knew that, when she would open them again, she would no longer be the one he´d known. 

And he was right. 

As Jinx opened her eyes it seemed as though the magic was still streaming out. They were bright blue and lacked pupils. It was two spheres of pure blue light. 

"No, my Lord," she spoke with a voice not at all like the one she was supposed to speak with. 

Sayron froze. In the Tower, Gnarl did the same. The advisor bent over the mist pool so low he almost fell into it, but at that moment the pool went black. However, he was able to make out two pinpricks of yellow. 

Jinx stood up and looked Sayron in the eye. "You can´t dominate me." Her eyes were still glowing as bright as his, and her voice was strange, very strange. 

"Why not?" Sayron asked, trying to hide his surprise. The girl suddenly emanated a feeling of power… 

"This magic is already flowing through my veins. I am at least as dark as you, Sayron, son of Vessperion, as dark as all those before him." She smiled and for just one moment, Sayron heard the sound of gigantic wings above his head, and he felt as though he was having a déjà vu. He shook himself, unsure what to do. 

At that moment, the glow of Jinx´ eyes faded and they took on their familiar grey colour. She fell to her knees again and gripped her head in both hands. "Aai…" 

"What just happened?" Gnarl asked, flustered. "Your signal fell away, Sire!" 

Sayron looked down on the crouched girl. Then he hit her against the side of the head with enormous force, his metal gauntlet knocking her over. She fell to her hands, her dark hair obscuring her face. Blood dripped to the deck. 

"You´re going below deck and you´re going to row," Sayron growled. "On your own on an oar, and if you try this again on two." 

Jinx unsteadily climbed to her feet and went below deck, without raising her head. 

Sayron half turned to his Minions. Some of them were staring at him with wide eyes. "What are you looking at? To your stations!"

The image in the mist pool was still disturbed. It seemed like the pool was hesitating, trying to show two images at once. 

Gnarl thoughtfully dipped a long finger into it. Now he knew what it felt like when others knew something you didn´t. What had just happened on deck? 

Sayron had really seemed startled. Not that it was a bad thing, of course. An Overlord had to be kept alert, and Gnarl often took care of that himself. He was more than happy if he could give his Master a challenge. 

"But you do know who´s _really_ handing out the challenges, don´t you, Gnarl?" 

The advisor looked up. The portal on the ceiling had changed. Instead of blue, it was now shining with a dark glow which hurt the eyes, even his. Three pairs of elongated yellow eyes emerged from the shadows. 

Gnarl bowed, deeper than he´d ever done for any Overlord. His spine creaked for a moment. "Unholy Lord. You honour me. Was that you, just then?" 

"Yes," three voices whispered together. "The girl´s head is an interesting place." 

"Good to hear that," Gnarl said with uncharacteristic nervosity. 

"Keep an eye on her, Gnarl. And never forget… to watch your own back." 

"Certainly not, Lord!" 

"I think I´m going to please this world with a little visit soon," the three dragon maws spoke. "This can be quite fun…" With those words, the voices died away, and the portal regained its normal blue glow. Gnarl let his breath escape. He shivered – he suddenly felt very mortal.

He always had that when he saw the one responsible for both his creation and his impressive age.

Jinx grumpily eyed her oar and did her best not to row too hard. From the outside, it was clearly visible which oar was hers – the one trailing loose in the waves every couple of seconds. 

The one moment she handed him the sword. Another, he tried to brainwash her. And the next he whacked her into the head! 

"Well, I learned an important lesson today," she said to herself. "I´m not helping him ever again!" And with those words she crossed her oar and stood up from her bench. She wanted to walk to the stairs leading up to the deck as she suddenly felt the tip of a sword prodding her back. 

She turned. The sword pointed at her had a gold-coloured handle with dark spirals, and it was firmly gripped by a claw belonging to Stripe. The strongest Minion of the horde was looking at her intently, his eyes glowing in the gloom. 

"What?" she asked, her hands spread in incense. 

Stripe narrowed his eyes, but he was smiling. "Heard that." 

"Yeah, and? This is ridiculous!" 

"Heard more," the Minion with the centurion helmet continued. From behind his back, Kniff popped up, a guilty expression on his face. "Sorry, Jinxie! Flapped out…" 

Stripe poked his sword a little further in Jinx´ direction. "Fought Giblet, hm?" 

"Kniff, what did you tell him?" Jinx asked with a growing sense of discomfort.  
>Kniff shuffled his feet and looked down. <p>

"Kniff!" 

The Minion looked up. "Bet for six bottles of rum you´re leader of the horde 'fore nightfall," he blurted out. 

Jinx´ heart sank. "Oh, no…" 

"Sorry, Jinxie." 

"Sun´s setting already," Stripe grinned, his sword still pointing forward. "On deck?" 

"Why not here?" Jinx shrugged. 

Stripe lowered the sword for a moment. "If you lose, have to fight Kniff. Elseway you´ll be thrown out of horde." 

"Why Kniff? Cleft is the weakest now." 

"Part of bet." 

Jinx looked at Kniff. His eyes were glistening. "Now or never. He had to take it, Jinxie." 

"Oh, great. Why not just leave me for the mermaids? I don´t even have my ropes anymore…" 

"Parch says you not use those against Giblet either." 

Stripe walked away from her. Jinx turned away from Kniff and looked at the large Minion, standing in the dark. For a moment it seemed like Giblet was standing there, with his steel helmet and breastplate, ready to teach her another lesson. 

The other Minions edged away from them, closer to the sides of the ship. 

Jinx tied the red cloth firmly around her head and slightly bent her knees. "Come on. But without the sword." 

Stripe growled. 

"I´m the one who´s challenged. I get to have something to say, right? You´re so sure, you´ll win anyway." 

The Minion threw the sword away. One of the rowers just dodged it as it buried itself in the side of the ship, trembling. Then he stormed at Jinx. 

Before she knew it he was upon her, all fists, claws, teeth and a rock-hard skull. He fought more fiercely than Giblet had ever done, and the fact he wasn´t as strong was more than compensated by pure aggression. 

Jinx kicked one of the benches and rolled over, so that she could get on top of the Minion. She clasped her fists together and hit him against his head, his shoulders and his back. The Minion seemed to falter as she hit the scar, but he kept fighting. His claws traced deep scratches over her shoulders and cheeks. A moment later he changed his claws into fists and hit her against her head, still sore with Sayron´s whack, so hard she heard her skull creak. 

She remembered the hit with which Giblet had blinded her. That one had been way harder.  
>She punched him in the mouth, but he dodged her so she laid her knuckles open on the rough wood of the ship. He was faster than Giblet had been. <p>

Jinx jumped to her feet to prevent Stripe from getting on top of her and protectively raised her fists. Only then did she notice the Minions around them were no longer rowing. 

All around, glowing yellow eyes were staring at them. The buzz of raspy voices filled the gloom below deck. 

Stripe jumped on her back and wrapped his arms around her neck. Jinx choked and tried to pry him off, and for a moment she seemed to succeed… 

She bumped into the side of the ship and felt something pressing into her hip. She remembered she´d taken a small supply of poison fruit from the reef. If she´d close her mouth and eyes… 

But the glowing eyes were staring at her, expectantly. She and Stripe were standing almost still now, wrapped in a furious embrace. 

"My kind never plays fair, Jinx," Giblet spoke in her memory. 

She could win… 

A yell escaped her and she flung Stripe over her head and away. He smacked into the floor, and before he could get up Jinx´ foot was placed on his chest. 

The Minion grabbed her foot and buried his claws into her flesh. Jinx didn´t move, and also stayed still as small red spots started appearing on the cloth she´d tied around it. Because of the pressure she was putting on his chest, he couldn´t muster enough strength to get her foot off. 

It seemed to her like she was standing there for a long time, as Stripe moaned and struggled beneath her foot on which she was standing with her full weight. She wanted to let him go, but she remembered what she was fighting for. After all she´d done for this, she didn´t want to lose, not for even one moment of weakness. 

Finally Stripe fell silent and still. The glowing eyes below deck were all focused on her. 

"Leader," Cleft whispered. 

"Leader," Scabies muttered.

"Leader," Gloob agreed with a big grin.

"Leader. Leader," it resounded, growing clearer and louder. Kniff´s ears were raised high as he stood amidst the rising chant. "Leader!" he shouted out.

At the helm, Sayron noticed the ship slowing down. Eventually the white sails on the side masts, full of wind, were the only thing that kept them going. 

Then a chant rose from beneath his feet, growing louder with every second. 

"Leader. Leader. Leader!" 

He froze. Then he strode away from the helm with large steps. As he went below deck, the voices of the Minions bombarded his ears. When his eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom he made out the figure of Jinx, in the middle of the group of Minions who were supposed to be rowing. Right in front of her, also in the circle, was Stripe. Just at that moment he took off his helmet. The Minions fell silent. Stripe bowed his head and lowered his ears. "Leader," he spoke. 

Jinx turned to the stiffened form of Sayron at the bottom of the stairs. She didn´t say anything, but he saw her eyes glistening. 

He turned and stomped back to the helm.

_Unbelievable_, Gnarl thought by himself. A human? Leader of the horde? If he´d heard that a year ago, he´d have made a whole lot of fun of the one who´d proposed it – as he hung roasting above the lava pit at the forge. 

Jinx, leader of the brown horde and with that, placed just below Sayron and himself in ranking. Well! Well well!

"All right, guys, keep on rowing. Everlight won´t come to us," Jinx said, uneasily. It was strange when the Minions obeyed her – Stripe as well. She sat down at her oar herself, and for a while it seemed as though nothing had happened, though Jinx´ head was pounding with the stroke Stripe had dealt to the side of her head. Her foot hurt like hell as well, the Minion hadn´t given in without nearly tearing it apart. 

She kept thinking of Giblet. 

Stripe manned the oar behind her, on his own as well because of his strength. She turned to him. "Stripe," she muttered. "I may have beaten you, but I´ll always treat you like a leader." 

"What?" 

"You´re experienced. You can lead them. I can´t, I´m a _human_, for Vessperion´s sake! I´m going to mess up!" 

A glimmer of recognition appeared in Stripe´s eyes. "Ah. Also _taught_ by Giblet?" 

"Do you know why he´s working in the forge?" 

"Was his apprentice." 

"His best, I imagine," Jinx nodded with a smile. "Okay, Stripe, I hereby ask you to be my advisor. Sayron has Gnarl, I need you." 

Stripe hesitated, then nodded curtly. Then, he turned and continued rowing, but with a great deal more enthusiasm. As Kniff triumphantly returned with his six bottles of rum the large Minion grabbed one from his arms and pulled the cork out with his teeth – grinning.

Later that evening some soldiers of the Glorious Empire rubbed the tears from their eyes, back at the Reef where the poison clouds had finally evaporated. They simply couldn´t miss the fact the Reef Gates had opened again. 

They could finally ship men to Everlight again!

Everlight. 

Scabies stood on the dragon´s head at the prow and allowed the wind to blow his ears back. The azure water raced beneath him, glistening like priceless treasures, and straight ahead of him finally lay the island, rising high in razor-sharp mountains, and fully overgrown. 

Unnoticed by the pirate Minion, two others crept towards him. Gloob and Kniff exchanged some gestures, simultaneously jumped at Scabies and kicked him into the water, shaking with laughter. 

Scabies broke through the surface, gasping for breath and furiously treading water. "Hey!" 

"Wanted to see if you really can swim!" 

Scabies spread his arms. His parrot was worriedly circling above his head. "Yes! Need more proof?" 

Kniff outstretched a claw and pulled Scabies back onto the dragon´s head. "No. But just funny." 

In the meantime, Gloob stared at the green vision before their prow. "Whaa…" 

"Going to have _fun_!" Scabies agreed. 

At the helm, Cleft picked up the telescope he´d found earlier in the hold and passed it on to Sayron. As he put it to his eye, the mist pool at the Tower filled itself with what he saw.

White beaches. Green forests. Parrots… 

"Everlight is where elves go when they get sick and tired of the world," Gnarl informed him. Simultaneously, the image shifted to a large group of tourists, clearly hailing from the Empire, wildly dancing to inaudible music. In a corner, some of them were shamelessly vomiting. Sayron looked away quickly. 

"It is rumoured to be an island paradise, where the elves go to meditate and be spiritually at one with the earth," Gnarl continued, the humour clearly audible in his voice as the telescope showed him some morbidly obese men lying on their backs on the beach. "Hmm, it seems the Empire have got here first!" 

Then, Sayron´s telescopic gaze returned to the party, where a woman was now to be seen. She was clad in a white toga with a purple stripe – a sign of great wealth. Around her, a group of men stood gaping at her, and with reason, for she was very beautiful. Her long, curling brown hair was piled high atop her head and her eyes were large and dark. "Ah yes, Everlight has some wonderfully stimulating examples of natural splendour!" 

"Don´t distract him, Gnarl!" Kelda´s voice rang out. 

Sayron looked away, feeling slightly caught. Coincidence had it that he looked straight ahead of the ship. 

And coincidently, that was straight into the maw of a monstrous creature with eight red eyes. 

Sayron jolted and lowered the telescope. He then saw the prow was meters away from a dangerous rock formation. And the Minions were still rowing with full force! The monster turned out to be a spider, half a meter tall and quickly disappearing into a hole in the rock. It was harmless… but the rock… 

"Stop rowing!" Sayron roared as he flung the wheel around. But he was too late, far too late. 

The _Horizonbreaker_ rammed its prow into the rock formation with crushing force. 

"Master!... Master… Mast-" 

Gnarl´s voice died away as Sayron was sent flying amidst pieces of wood, rock and rope, and with him the Minions that´d been on deck and below it. The Overlord landed in the shallows, his head on a rock, immediately unconscious. 

All around him the spiders swarmed out of their hiding spots in the rock formation.

As Sayron opened his eyes again, he was aware of a number of impressions battling to be first. 

Wet. 

Bright. 

Green. 

...Alone. 

He climbed to his feet in the cool seawater, grateful for the fact that steel forged by Giblet would never rust, and looked about him. The ocean breeze lifted his sash as he let his gaze travel along the coastline. 

No trace of partying Empire folk. Not of spiders, either. 

Or of Minions for that matter. And it took Gnarl an alarmingly long time to treat him to some witty remarks... 

He put his hands to his mouth. "Minions!" 

No answer, save an alarmed chittering from the jungle ahead. 

"Stripe! Scabies! Gloob!" 

Ugh. Why not? "Jinx!" 

No answer. 

He was alone. 

Alone, stranded on an unknown and hostile island… and without a link to the Netherworld. He turned. There, completely beaten apart against the rock, was the wreck of the _Horizonbreaker_. He couldn´t even sail back to the Reef Gates. 

Well, then. This was what he was an Overlord for. 

He squared his shoulders and tightened his grip on… 

His axe was gone. 

For a moment, he was speechless. That axe had faithfully served him for years. He felt a sting of loss. 

Then he saw something glittering from the corner of his eye. He turned, and saw the sword, sticking in a piece of wood from the wreck further into the ocean. He waded towards it and pulled it out. He weighed it in his hand, swept it around, testing, and smiled. 

"Thanks."

The spiders hurried through the jungle, sometimes running on all eights, sometimes throwing out threads of silk and jumping through the trees with a speed which wouldn´t be outdone by an elf. They climbed steep cliffs, lowered themselves into abysses and floated over gorges and rivers by a thread. 

They were on their way, and nothing could stop them. 

In cocoons on their backs, the prey started to wake and struggle. Here and there, the tips of knives or claws appeared from the silk, but the holes were quickly mended. Some spiders did have trouble, however, so they hung their prey from thick threads in the trees to pick them up later, when they´d been weakened. Some of them stayed behind to keep watch, others ran with the group to help them with their own prey. They were fighting fiercely… except the one bigger than the others, strangely that one didn´t struggle at all… 

It was a real pity they hadn´t been able to take the _really_ big one with them. 

It didn´t matter. Soon, they´d be with the Queen to satisfy her hunger…

Sayron climbed the steeply sloping beach to the jungle´s edge. He´d already poured the water out of his boots, but he didn´t feel top shape after the shipwreck. He stayed still for a moment, the wall of green right in front of him, filled with darkness, mysterious noises and loads of danger. 

"Let´s have it." He stepped in and disappeared into Everlight´s impregnable jungle. 

Miles, miles ahead the spiders climbed over a mountain range like it was seen nowhere else in the world. Even further, the Queen was waiting in her lair.

"Are you sure this is going to help?" 

"_Trust_ me, darling. This´ll heal you." 

Kivner nervously glanced at the candles that stood burning all around him. He was lying on a long bench, clad in nothing but his bandages. The bandages Estua had taken care of. 

"Who is that girl, anyway?" Nessuna asked as she lit a couple more candles. 

"Estua?" Kivner closed his eyes. "She saved me. She took me into her house when I came out of Nordhaven. I´m eternally grateful to her and I love her." 

"That´s clear," Nessuna muttered with a sarcasm that was completely lost on Kivner. "But she hasn´t succeeded in curing you like I can, Kivner." 

The man slightly moved his lips, but didn´t answer. His eyes remained closed. 

Nessuna released her breath with a smile. The smoke from the candles had finally done its job.

Along gorges with slowly dripping streams of water, along huge, strange flowers, along burrows he didn´t want to know what occupied them. Across bridges hung long ago, between the remains of ancient statues. Sayron wandered through the jungle, cut himself a path through vegetation growing between trees seventy meters tall. He tried to keep a straight course, but didn´t succeed. 

He knew it were situations like this that could help an Overlord to the Abyss. Cut off from the Tower, without Minions, in unknown territory. You could get eaten by a giant weasel just like that… 

"Mmm!" 

He stopped. Only then did he realize he´d been walking faster than normal. He smiled by himself – he really was nervous. 

"Mmm!" 

That sounded… like a Minion? Sayron slowly approached the sound. There, halfway up a tree covered in fungi, hung a strange white thing. Further examination revealed it to be a cocoon. Sayron carefully prodded it, in case it´d contain a gruesome insect, but the noise it made really was in a Minion voice. 

He chopped the thread with which it hung from the tree. Then he carefully cut away the cocoon threads. 

"Mmf!" Two ears shot out of the cocoon. Some good slashes of his claws, and the Minion was free and yanked his centurion helmet from the remains of the silk. Sayron realized he´d never been happier to see Stripe. 

"Master," the Minion rasped with a bow. "Thank you." 

Sayron looked at him for a moment. "Do you know where the rest is?" 

"Taken by spiders, Master." 

"Why were you hanging in that tree?" 

Stripe shrugged. "Kept fighting until they left me. Maybe rest does too." 

Something lowered itself from a nearby tree. Stripe immediately turned, wanted to draw his sword and pulled it from the cocoon a second later. At that time, the spider was already on top of him. Sayron swung his own sword and cut the spider in two. The creature screeched and collapsed, leaking bluish goo. Instantly, six more came down, and before the Overlord had a chance to kill them they were upon him, feeling around for a weak spot into which they could sink their mandibles. Sayron roared as one of them found his neck, and another injected its poison between his arm- and shoulderpiece. He thrashed wildly, with such force two smaller spiders were flung off his back so Stripe could behead them. After that, the Minion leaped to his Master´s shoulder and pulled the spiders off, so they could dispatch them together. 

For a moment, the two stood panting. Then they looked at each other. 

Stripe lifted his helmet and grinned. He walked around Sayron to stand behind him, as a one man horde. Then his eye fell on something different. "Look, Master!" 

Sayron looked down. There, inside the carcass of one of the spiders, was a green glow. He knelt down and cut the arthropod open further. The glow spread. 

"Green life force!" 

"Thought I smelled something," Stripe noted. 

"That´s the jungle, Stripe." Sayron tapped the glowing core and let the life force be absorbed into the amber gem. "So it´s true… there are green Minions here." 

Stripe looked about him, his ears swivelling round as though he was trying to pick up a sound. "Finding be difficult." 

"I imagine, if what Gnarl´s told me is true. Their camouflage is terrific…" Sayron looked forward for a moment, and then focused. Was he having a conversation with one of his Minions now? 

It wasn´t like there was a better partner, but still… 

"Come on," he said, suddenly rough. He strode off, whacking his sword at the undergrowth as if it was actually forged to function as a machete.

The sun started setting. 

They´d lost many of the prey, temporarily hung up and guarded until their muscles would become tired and they´d cease their fighting and stabbing. But there were more than enough of them still present in the cocoons on the spiders´ backs, mainly those warm to the touch and weaker than the fierce fighters with the pointy ears. 

Luckily, because they were nearing the Queen´s lair. 

Ahead of the spiders, the rocks became rounder and the gorges opened into a single abyss. In front of their eight eyes, it seemed like the world ceased to exist in a whirl of mist and foam. On both their sides, gigantic waterfalls thundered down, and there, in the middle of the lake, was their home. It was a steep, high pyramid, overgrown and weathered, but there were still many images of the Mother Goddess visible. This was a temple, but much grander than the one at the reefs. This temple had once been the centre of the elven cult. 

Now it was the centre of something entirely different, and much darker. 

Barely visible threads of silk floated down from the cliffs and attached themselves to the rough stone of the temple. The spiders ran over the lake, swift as shadows. Lower and lower they came, eventually reaching the entrance formed by the Mother Goddess´ mouth. From there, they ran into the tunnel that was her throat, and deeper into the dark insides of the temple. 

Deep below them, something moved. Something enormous, with lots of legs. 

The cocoons started moving more wildly. There was just one, larger than the rest, which stayed still. That one did happen to be attached to the back of a spider having difficulties with her heavy load, still just hanging by a thread above the lake. She was the only one still outside. She'd had trouble along the whole way, bearing the big cocoon with the long-legged creature inside. 

The thread did already describe a low arch above the water, caused by the combined weight of the spider and the human, and the end attached to the temple was fraying fast.

Eventually, it snapped. 

The spider and her load fell into the lake and hit it with a modest splash. The arthropod immediately sank, and the water caused the threads of the cocoon to come loose.

Something unfolded, kicked her legs and rose to the surface. 

Jinx broke through the still waters of the lake, her breathing fast with horror. Her entire skin was red with rash. She started rubbing her arms to drive off the itching, noticed where she was and swam to the lower steps of the temple. There, she sat on the weathered rock below the water level. 

She shivered, something which had nothing to do with the temperature. "Seriously… spider silk?" 

Jinx didn't have a single allergy. She could eat anything without having trouble. But if she came in contact with but one thread of spider silk, the rash flamed up and she would suffer for days with unbearable itching. 

And now, she'd been enveloped by the stuff on all sides. She'd moved as little as possible. She thanked every god she knew for having landed in the lake. 

For a moment she looked over the glistening surface, then she lowered herself into it entirely again. The water subdued the itching for a bit. 

"Oh, gods. Of all things… Vessperion, this is unbearable!" She forced herself to stop scratching and let herself float along, arms and legs spread, staring up at the sky. Then she rewound the recent events. 

A great jolt. The prow being shattered. Being flung away into the water, nearly being decapitated by Sayron's axe whirring past, a dark, hairy creature jumping at her, and then the spider silk. And now, she was probably miles inland without the Minions or their Overlord. 

Nice and quiet. But she did worry about them. 

The water made the itch bearable, but she´d have to get out sometime. She searched the shores, if the soaring cliffs and waterfalls, gleaming in the red light, deserved that name. There really was no shore at all. This lake was some sort of drain... She could make out some caves at water level where rivers went on their way to sea, but she wouldn´t enter those.

She was lost enough as it was. 

So, cliffs. If she´d still have her ropes, they wouldn´t have caused her trouble at all. But now… 

Jinx looked up at the temple. It was very overgrown. And in a tree not that high on the walls hung a great number of vines. Maybe, if she could get to those… would they be as strong as actual rope? It was worth a try. 

She swam back to the temple and scrambled up the rocks. Then she tried climbing up to the vines, but had to give up in seconds, groaning with irritation. Her skin felt like a thousand nests of ants were burying themselves in. It was itching so badly it hurt. Jinx didn´t bother any more, but let herself fall backward into the lake. In the water was the only place where the feeling was bearable. 

She had no weapons, no idea where she was, and Sayron nor the Minions were likely to be very close. They might even be dead already. 

Jinx craned her neck, so she saw the lake upside down. She narrowed her eyes. 

Two small round things were rapidly coming closer above the water…

Gloob had been hanging high from a pinnacle of rock, so Sayron had been throwing Stripe´s sword to the thread until the Minion fell down. Partly to his own surprise, the Overlord had caught the cocoon as it plummeted down. Scabies´ cocoon had been easy to recognize as a red parrot had been clawing at the threads, cawing furiously. The bird had circled Sayron´s head as he cut the cocoon open, and hadn´t left the Minion´s shoulder ever since. 

Now he had a horde again, three Minions. Sayron had felt slightly better. And then the terrain had begun to rise, until they were standing atop a hill with a view of something both insanely beautiful and gruesome. 

Before their eyes, a landscape seemingly not from this world stretched out to the horizon. It was a sea of razorlike rock spikes, skewering the sky above them. The setting sun cast red shadows into a labyrinth of gorges. 

Sayron stood gaping up, his sword hanging limp in his gauntleted hand. 

"We´re not going through this." 

And the three Minions followed their Master as he started walking south.

The two round things turned out to be talkers. 

Jinx looked up at the bloated faces of two winged, black-eyed creatures in horror. "Child, what´s happened to you? All alone here in the lake, with such a red skin…" 

"Don´t call me a child! And go away!" She swatted at them, their eyes reminding her of mermaids. "Leave me alone!" 

"Oh, we can´t just leave you here," the second fairy spoke. "We´ve got to take her with us, Rosetta." 

"Throw some pixie dust over her then, Iridessa!" 

"On it." Golden dust floated down from the pudgy, two-fingered hands and spread over Jinx´ body. She rubbed her skin, but it didn´t come off. She was sparkling like Nordbergian Midwinter decoration in the falling night… 

"Think happy thoughts, child!" 

"Happy thoughts? I lost everybody! I´m stuck with you! I´m itching like hell because of that spider silk!" 

One of the fairies hovered for a moment. "Did you come out of one of those horrible spiders´ cocoons too, then?" 

Jinx fell silent. "Yes. Who else does?" she asked carefully. 

"Oh, we have some ugly creatures with glowing eyes back at our home tree, but we´re going to drop those onto the tsingy," the fairy spoke lightly. "Don´t you worry about that." 

Jinx shut her mouth. She couldn´t say anything now. She had to go with these two, because somewhere out there were Minions – alive! …For now… 

"Good, child! You´re thinking happy thoughts!" 

She looked down abruptly, her thoughts of Minions forgotten for a moment. Only now she saw she was rising from the water. 

"…That stuff makes me fly?" 

"Combined with faith and happy thoughts. Now, come with us to the Fairy Tree and we´ll take care of that skin…" 

Sparkling, Jinx floated away over the water between the two fairies.

The southern course turned out to have been a bad idea by day, let alone by night. The little starlight was blocked off by the many layers of leaves above their heads, and as Sayron and the Minions struggled through the jungle, they knew things could get nasty every next second. And they did. 

Five minutes after they´d turned their backs on the sea of rock spikes, the four were looking out over a clearing between the towering trees, which Sayron entered without a second thought. The Minions followed, without noticing the strange broad plants between the tall grass. That changed as they started moving. 

One of the plants opened a broad maw filled with thorny teeth and hissed at the Overlord. Sayron grimaced in shock and raised his sword. At once, the entire clearing awakened. The Minions drew their weapons and took positions with their backs to Sayron as the plants attacked. 

What followed was a dark green chaos. From all sides green maws snapped at them, thorns pulled deep scratches over their unprotected skin, Scabies fell and had been eaten if Gloob hadn´t jumped in front of him, mace at the ready to whack the plants aside. Sayron swung his sword around like a lunatic. "Damned Everlight! Damned elves! Damned Gnarl!" He roared as two plants closed their jaws around his shoulders and dragged him down.

"_Damned Jinx!_" The sword flashed as the Overlord swung it around with all the strength his rage had given him and cut through stalks and leaves alike. He scrambled to his feet.

"Minions!" 

The three hurried towards him through the crawling chaos, nearly tripping over thorny stalks as they went. They managed to make it out of the plants, with hammering hearts, covered in scratches, bites and rash – everything here seemed to be poisonous. The plants still hissed and snapped at them as they went on. 

A few minutes later their breathing was slightly more regular. Sayron was still stomping on in rage, his sword dripping with green juice and his arms covered in scratches. "When I find her, I´m kicking that wench out of my domain for good," he growled. "The horde should be led by a Minion…" 

Behind him, Stripe´s eyes lit up. A heartbeat later, however, he outstretched a hand towards the Overlord. "Master –" he started, but it was already too late. 

Sayron´s violently descending boot landed in a small hole. Instantly, that erupted into dozens of glowing creatures. 

The Overlord quickly stepped back, lowering his shoulders. "Gnomes," he hissed. At the same moment, a minuscule poison dart, shot from a small blowpipe, ricocheted off his helmet. These gnomes were defending themselves slightly better. 

Sayron was already raising his sword, but then realized the creatures were still pouring out of the burrow. There simply were too many of them and he had no idea what effect those darts would have if they hit target. He swore, turned and hurried on through the undergrowth. The Minions followed, their arms over their heads. 

The gnomes pursued them for the entire night, and the jungle resounded with swearing, chittering, hisses, roars and the clash of weaponry as Sayron and the Minions got themselves further and further into trouble.

The view was almost enough to forget the itching. 

It wasn´t just the sight of an enormous, bulky, sparkly tree, it was also standing on a tall rock spire surrounded by a true forest of stone knives which, if fallen on, seemed more painful to Jinx than a trip down the Tower stairs in Gnarl´s Iron Maiden. "What is that?" she gasped. 

The two fairies flying next to her followed her gaze to make sure she didn´t mean the tree. "That´s the tsingy, child." 

"So that´s where you´re…" 

"…going to throw those nasty creatures, yes." The fairy patted her shoulder and Jinx had to restrain herself not to put her dagger through her and try to fly off on her own. "But they deserve it. One of them tried to set the tree alight, imagine that!" 

Reds! Maybe Hoarse or Parch was there! "No, that can´t be tolerated," Jinx said, trying to keep her voice steady. "What do they look like apart from the glowing eyes, anyway?" 

"A few of them have red skin and horns, like demons," one of the fairies chittered. The other nodded. "Yes, and some of the others have large ragged ears and they´re wearing rat fur…" 

_A tuque hat, say something about a tuque hat,_ Jinx begged inside. Kniff had to have survived, he had to. Nothing could kill that Minion. 

But the fairies didn´t seem to be in the mood to talk about the Minions any more. "Tell us, child, where do you come from? You don´t seem to be from these parts, you´re not at all like those dreadful fat Empire tourists." 

Jinx gave a forced smile. "I was shipwrecked on your shore. I´m originally from Nordberg." It didn´t seem like a good idea to her to say she did come from the Empire, in the end – and even worse a plan to tell them what kind of place she called home now. 

"Nordberg, hm? Well, we´ll talk about that later," the fairy spoke cheerfully. Jinx looked up. They´d risen to the high piece of land where the tree was located. It was a strange place indeed. Everywhere around it, the razorlike points of the tsingy reached upwards, but this area was relatively smooth. It had probably broken off of the even higher cliff ahead, with the tree still on it. 

Jinx quietly tried to hover by holding the thought she´d soon see Kniff again. And yes, in a whirl of golden sparks, she rose a few centimetres off the ground. Nice. That was probably the only way to escape this bizarre place… 

Everywhere around the tree, fairies flitted through the air, glistening with golden dust. The large, dark leaves lit up as they soared past. Above the rock a constant buzz of rapid wingbeats and chittering voices resounded. 

Then a scream ripped apart the warm, vibrating air. Jinx looked up instantly, her eyes wide. That´d been a Minion´s voice! 

A moment later there was a nauseating smack. A high-pitched giggle wafted around the tree. 

"Have you started throwing them down already?" 

"Easy, child," the fairy soothed. "It seems to be so. But you won´t want to see it." 

Jinx was already gone. She ran through the strange island´s tall grass to where the scream had come from. There awaited an image that made her stop dead in her tracks. 

A single fairy was dancing through the air above the grass, a trace of golden dust trailing behind her. Also trailing behind her, seemingly hypnotized out of their wits, hazy-eyed and walking like they were totally wasted, were four Minions. In this light, it was difficult to see to which clan they belonged, let alone who they were. 

The two fairies caught up with her. "Come along now, child…" 

"Don´t you ever call me child," Jinx murmured. "You´ve got no idea." 

Then she drew her dagger and ran for the dancing fairy keeping the Minions hypnotized. One jabbing movement, and the bloated little body was pinned to the blade. The fairy shrieked, so high it was nearly inaudible – the scream of an insect. The pixie dust was spraying off her like blood. 

Jinx looked at the four Minions. They were slowly coming to their senses again, but fairies were approaching them at all sides, too. Those four would very soon be under hypnosis again if she wasn´t careful. 

Two browns. Two reds. And, unbelievable blessed coincidence, Kniff and Parch were among them! 

Jinx paid no attention to their surprise and started shaking her skewered fairy above their heads. The pixie dust floated down to them. She noticed Kniff rose immediately, despite the still hazy look in his eyes. "Guys, come on! Wake up!" She lifted the other brown and shook him until his teeth rattled. She saw the new red Minion pressed a white-hot hand to Kniff´s back so he landed instantly, jumping away in pain. Parch seemed to be clearer in the head as well. 

Pity they were surrounded by fairies by now. 

The plump creatures looked down at them as Jinx tried to shield the Minions. She raised her dagger, the weakly struggling fairy still on it, and saw them back away in horror. "Don´t bother," she said, teeth clenched. "We just want to leave." 

"You´re with that Demon Lord everyone´s talking about," one of the fairies gasped. "He insulted and attacked Queen Fay in Nordberg…" 

"Not just that," Jinx replied, circling like a she-wolf to protect the Minions against new hypnosis. The two browns drew their weapons – she saw the new one had taken an elven bow off his shoulder. "He opened the Reef Gates and he´s here, on Everlight." 

"Of course. How else did his devils get here?" 

"Not devils," Parch muttered behind her back. "Minions." And a single fireball elegantly arched its way to the group of floating fairies. They scattered fearfully, clearing the way for the two reds. Two pairs of glittering eyes cast a questioning glance at Jinx. She outstretched her arm. "The tree! Now!" 

It was raining fire. The dark leaves lit up, and the trunk followed soon after. 

The Minions cheered, the fairies screamed, and Jinx loved it. 

She turned, a dark silhouette against the inferno, the dead fairy still skewered on her knife. She looked at the four Minions. "We fly! Come on!" 

Four grins answered hers, and together they took to the skies.

The Everlightian jungle was home to many kinds of creatures, both magical and non-magical. But if they´d looked up at the right moment, all of them would have been surprised. It was no ordinary sight, flying, glistening Minions in front of the full moon.  
>The four were cheering in triumph, spinning in the air and shaking their fists at the incinerating Fairy Tree. Jinx spread her arms wide and threw back her head laughing. She felt like she´d regained her ropes again. <p>

The two reds seemed to be just fine. Vertigo was not in their dictionary. The browns were slightly less at ease, but they weren´t afraid, either. The leader of their horde was with them, after all. 

In this bright moonlight Jinx recognized the red Minion as Blister, and the brown with the bow introduced himself as Minc. He was above Kniff in the horde, and was the second weakest living Minion. Jinx feared Cleft to be dead, what made Kniff weakest again. The Minion in the tuque hat didn´t seem to mind that much. He flew the highest of the small horde and wouldn´t shut his mouth for a second as they soared above the tsingy. 

"…and spiders took us and we saw Stripe cut the throats of two and the Master just lay there…" 

"I know, Kniff." 

"…and we knew you´d come, Jinxie." 

"…" For a moment, she just stared at him, in their idiotic floating position in the moonlight above the unknown land where they´d still managed to find each other. "…Really?" 

Minc nodded before Kniff. "Leader doesn´t abandon the horde." 

"Hoarse will come, too," Blister agreed, and Parch´ eyes lit up. "Leaders always come. And with them, the Master." 

Jinx looked around and followed the jagged horizon. Where _was_ Sayron? She remembered the Reef Gates to be west of Everlight, so their ship had to be somewhere on the western coast… 

…but it was kind of difficult to find out where the west was in the middle of the night, with the perfectly full moon directly above your head. She made a mental note to keep the rising sun at her back the next morning. "I´ll get us back to Sayron, guys. We´re going back to the Netherworld." 

She caught Kniff´s eye, but he was looking at her strangely. "Jinxie…" 

"What?" she asked, a mere second before she noticed herself. She was losing altitude, very slowly, but now that she´d noticed, faster and faster. She shook her skewered fairy above her own head, but no more pixie dust came off it. "Oh, dear." 

The four Minions also started sinking in the air. "Oh, no…" 

And then, about fifty meters above the razor-sharp tsingy, the magic keeping them in the air collapsed on itself, and the five of them fell through the dark like bricks. 

"_Shiiiiiit!_" Jinx shrieked. She thrashed with her arms and writhed to not skewer herself onto that particular enormous spike directly below her… 

Hazy like a dream, she saw Parch and Blister move to two sides of the group with flicks of their tails and grab the browns at their arms. Minc and Kniff shivered in pain visibly as the scorching hands of the reds burned themselves into their skin, but they didn´t make a sound. Then, they grabbed Jinx. They fell on in a strange formation. 

The reds wrapped their tails around two peaks and clasped their foot claws around them as well, with a strange hissing noise as the rock´s sharp edges got smeared with steaming red blood. Jinx and the browns smacked into the peak below them, but their descent did slow, certainly as Kniff and Minc put their claws to use as well. 

There was a cracking noise. Blister yelped, but didn't let go. Jinx looked up and saw one of his legs was bent in a strange way – broken or dislocated by the enormous strain he´d put on it. 

"Hang on," she called up. "Hang on…" She yanked the fairy off her dagger and rammed the weapon into the rock, but the blade ricocheted off and the knife was twisted out of her grip. 

Then, finally, eventually, they´d come low enough. The reds pulled their tails loose, the browns very carefully pulled their broken claws out of the cracks. Jinx fell down to the hard bottom of the tsingy, covered in sharp little pieces of stone. The four Minions fell on top of her. Minc and Kniff immediately jumped up, weapons at the ready. Parch and Blister stayed where they were, their feet a bloody mess. 

Jinx stared up at the stars. "Sayron," she sighed, "where are you now?"

The sun rose above an incredibly foggy jungle. Water dripped from feather-like leaves, bent branches, pointy ears and glistening armour. The first birds drove the creatures of the night away. 

Lord Sayron of the Netherworld hauled himself up out of the dripping ferns as the sun passed over his face. Dew streamed off his armour as the amber gem flickered and came to life. From deep inside his mighty chest a groan arose. 

Some distance away Gloob and Scabies clambered to their feet. Stripe, leant against a tree, lifted his head and put his helmet on his head more straight – he´d taken the last watch. The fire, lit by blue lightning, had gone out hours ago. 

The Overlord rolled his shoulders and checked his sword. He felt terrible after last night. The bare skin of his arms, covered in stings, bites, scratches and some open wounds was a silent witness of that fact. The three Minions hadn´t fared much better, but they´d heal more quickly than their Master. 

Something snorted, loud and moist, and far too close. 

Sayron froze. The Minions automatically followed his example. Stripe swiftly snuck around his tree and stood in front of his Master. 

Very carefully, the Overlord crept forward. He could see something in the mist rising from the forest floor and between the high ferns. 

They resembled mountains, all dark, rough fur, gigantic heads and almost ridiculously large, razor-sharp horns – except that there was nothing funny about it at all. Hooves like soup plates clawed the earth between the thick, gnarled tropical tree roots. A pair of glistening horns rose as one of the beasts looked up, the maw full of ferns. 

Sayron turned back and pressed himself into his tree. "Not good," he muttered. He looked forward for a moment. Then he squared his shoulders and grasped the sword´s hilt. He looked up. Their southern course would take them through the herd. But he was an Overlord… 

"Minions, follow me," he said, not louder than necessary. He stepped out from behind the tree and walked toward the herd. He wouldn't go through it – there were boundaries to what even he was willing to do. 

Heads were raised. There was snorting. Pupils shrunk. 

The largest of the beasts stared at Sayron with growing anger, threw up his enormous heavy head and ripped loose a raw roar from his throat, so loud the Minions stood still and Sayron´s heart missed a beat. 

"_Mhûûûûûûaaaaaaaahh!_" 

The entire herd stampeded at them like a murderous avalanche. 

For the briefest moment, Sayron was frozen to the forest floor. Then, at once, he ran as fast as he could. 

He was aware of his Minions sprinting out in front of him, but, bound by their loyalty, never far away even if they could. Behind him resounded the roars of the herd, the thundering of their hooves, the snapping of branches and the splintering of small trees. Sayron was pretty fast, even with his armour, but he knew he couldn´t outrun the beasts. 

He glanced back. It didn´t last long. It was not a pleasant sight. The hornbeasts had madness in their red eyes, and there was no doubt they´d trample him into the earth until nothing was left but a stain on the forest floor. 

"_Mhûûûûûûaaaaaaaahh!_" 

The Overlord let his armoured feet come down even faster. His muscular arms pumped like pistons as he crashed through the jungle like a lunatic. 

A parrot´s caw resounded, followed by the call of a Minion. Sayron looked up feverishly.  
>Scabies stood waving his arms on the mossy trunk of a fallen tree, his parrot circling above his head. "Master!" He wildly gesticulated to the right. Sayron followed his claw. There, the overgrown walls of a fort or temple rose between the trees. <p>

The Overlord turned right. The herd skidded, but kept following him. 

The walls were coming closer. Sayron prayed to every god who´d be willing to help him they´d offer protection from the crazy beasts. 

His Minions darted away in front of him. He thundered in between the walls. And as if his prayers had been heard, two stone doors rolled shut behind him. 

Panting, he glanced back, after he'd put a safe distance between himself and the hornbeasts. The doors, not that different from the Reef Gates, trembled as gigantic horns were rammed against them, but they remained intact and in place. A scream of fury echoed through the forest as the beasts realized the trespassers of their territory had escaped them. 

Sayron swallowed the metallic taste from his mouth and looked about him. His Minions were protectively standing in front of him, but there was no living creature in sight between the high walls. 

There was, however, a faint and distant singing. It was elven voices. 

He crept forward, careful not to make a sound, and – 

"_There you are!_" 

Sayron almost had another heart attack. "Gnarl?" 

"I knew you'd make it!" the advisor's voice blared. "Glad to see you're not dead, Sire!" 

"Where _were_ you, Gnarl?" Sayron breathed. 

"We lost your signal for a while, there. But it seems like it didn't matter a thing. You can't bring Evil down." In the Tower the advisor exchanged a glance – both triumphant and relieved – with Kelda. The Mistress had threatened to turn him into a pair of gloves if he didn't see to it the mist pool was working again soon. "...I see you're in an elven temple, Sire. I'd be careful if I were you. They're very protective of their cult." 

"Forget that," Kelda snapped. "How soon can you set up a gate?" 

"I've already sent Grubby to seek out a location, Mistress," Gnarl nonchalantly answered. 

"Within those walls, please. He's coming home this instant." 

"Eh," the advisor coughed, "that's unlikely, actually. The soil over there's not fit for the drilling of... ouch!" 

In the meantime, Sayron had caught a hold of his breathing again. "Take it easy, down there. I'll get out." He went on his way between the high walls. Stripe, Gloob and Scabies formed a protective formation around him and kept a close eye on their surroundings. There didn't seem to be elves in this vestibule, however. They probably were all at the singing... 

Then, Sayron spotted a small tree, growing high up the walls and hung with a white, spidersilk cocoon. He grabbed Stripe's shoulder. "Give me your sword." The Minion obeyed him and Sayron aimed for the thread supporting the cocoon. He managed to cut it loose with one throw. Stripe's sword fell down with the cocoon, and as the Minion caught his weapon Sayron extended his arms for the cocoon. He immediately felt the heat within. With his own sword he cut loose the threads, and there, still covered with the inner silk, was the horned head of Hoarse, leader of the red clan. As soon as his hands were free, he clenched them into fists and wrung loose his arms, and the cocoon burst into flame. 

"Master," the red bowed. His eyes glittered, and he seemed to be more than willing to put up the fight with the ones that put him into the silk. 

"Master," Gnarl echoed. "It doesn't seem a good idea to enter the ceremony with just four Minions..." 

"These are the four strongest, Gnarl, and I have to get back to the Tower," Sayron bit to his advisor. "Give me some suitable advice." 

For a moment, there was a noticeable absence of the grey Minion's creaky voice. As he spoke again, however, there was the hint of a smile to his words. 

"My Lord, I've got an idea."

The ceremony was well underway. Along the temple walls were rows of elves with crossed legs, bowls of incense in their hands. The smoke was lifted up to the canopy above the temple, through elegant, overgrown stone arches and niches in the walls, and the depictions of the Mother Goddess in all her forms. 

In the middle of the large open space was the high priestess, her hands outstretched to one of those depictions of the elven deity, high up in the wall. The goddess wasn't in her form of a slender woman with an angular headdress and her two knives, high and dignified, this time, but a fat female, like the other elves with her legs crossed and with a crown-like headpiece resembling the one the priestess wore. The priestess' body also resembled that of her goddess. As she moved slightly, her whole body jiggled. She was standing in front of an altar, laden with food: fruit, rotund roots, strangely formed leaves, but also the meat of birds and larger game. She outstretched her hands towards the food. The singing rose to a climax. 

And it went silent. 

The priestess froze, her hands still floating above the altar. Then she turned, several parts of her body slightly delayed. 

On the other side of the temple stood a large figure with broad shoulders, covered in armour. Four little creatures flanked him in warlike poses. 

For a moment the priestess was speechless. Then her expression hardened. "Who are you? You interrupt the feeding, speak your names!" A brown-haired elf had risen from his seat at the wall and now tried to draw the attention of his priestess by tapping her shoulder, but she shook him off. 

"Dramatic," Gnarl sighed next to Sayron's ear. "These females are the height of elven beauty, Sire. They force feed themselves to look like their Mother Goddess deity. Hell of a wobble these ladies have... hell of a wobble! I believe they have a connection with the temple doors..." 

Sayron glanced at the wall behind the priestess. "Back there the soil's fit to dig a gate, I presume?" 

"Probably, Sire. Grubby's on his way." 

"Such a coincidence," Sayron remarked. He squared his shoulders. "Lord Sayron, a traveller," he spoke to the priestess. "I wish you to open the gates behind me, milady. It was not my intention to get stuck in here." 

"So you wish to return the way you came?" the priestess asked, her eyes narrowed to slits. 

"Certainly." 

She nodded with dignity and raised her arms. A blue glow surrounded her and the creaking of ancient stone resounded behind the Overlord. "You can return, Lord Sayron." She turned to the nervous elf behind her, irritated. "What is it?" 

"M-milady..." he stammered. "This is... the Overlord… Kamáel went to stop at the Reef…" 

The priestess´ eyes swivelled back to Sayron. The Overlord smiled darkly and bowed as he stepped aside in one fluid motion. The thunder of enormous hooves resounded through the tunnel behind him. 

A heartbeat later the side of the tunnel was beaten to pieces by gigantic yellowy horns. The hornbeast at the front of the herd was the largest as well, and as Sayron pressed himself into the back of the temple, he couldn´t help admiring the strength and fury of the beast. There was no rationality in him. He was simply enraged with the entire world. And he was so _large_... not even five elves would be able to tame him, even if they'd manage to get on his back. 

The temple rang with the roar of the beasts and the screams of the elves, and the only thing Sayron and the Minions needed to do was watch and make sure they didn't move too much, so they wouldn't be noticed. Sayron was silently shaking with laughter, and Gnarl didn't even make the effort of doing it silently. 

Then a blue flash lit the gloomy stone and canopy. The priestess had been able to get out of the beasts' range and was busy opening the front gates, in the hope the beasts would leave the temple. 

The largest beast let his bloodshot eyes fall onto her and snorted. A single mighty hoof clawed the earth. 

He stormed at her. 

The priestess seemed to freeze. Then she jumped, clearly aided by magic, and flitted to a platform halfway up the temple walls. The hornbeast rammed himself against the wall, ripped out his horns in a shower of crumbling stone and roared. 

"_Mhûûûûûûaaaaaaaahh!_" 

Sayron felt that roar tremble inside his chest, and he was glad it wasn't him, fleeing for those horns and hooves. 

The gates opened completely. Some of the beasts slowed and stopped, lured by the freedom behind the doors. Somewhere they knew it was better to be out there than to chase elves inside. The fury started to subside. The largest of the beasts turned away from the priestess on the platform, and suddenly he was calmly walking out through the doors, following his herd like nothing had happened at all. 

Something had happened. 

Almost all of the elves were dead, lying crushed and broken on the forest floor or skewered on razor-sharp horns. Some survivors were clawing themselves to their priestess, moaning.  
>Sayron stepped forwards and carefully planted his steel boot on the back of a dying elf as he did so. He looked up at the priestess. <p>

She snapped her fingers. A single, bright blue spark fizzed. 

The doors banged shut. 

"Are we going to do it this way," the Overlord growled. 

The priestess looked back, determined. "There's no place for you here, Sayron, Demon Lord of Nordberg." 

"Open those doors." 

"Never. They'll never open again. You'll die in here." 

Sayron whipped his hand up, fast as a snake, and flung a stream of blue sparks at the priestess. She tried to dodge, but didn't succeed to get all of her large mass out of the way and was knocked down to the forest floor. There, the Minions immediately jumped her, and when they'd finished it wasn't even necessary for him to sink his sword through her layers of fat and into her heart. 

With her last breath came the creaking of the doors. 

Sayron pulled back his sword. His shoulders sank. "Gnarl," he sighed, his voice suddenly breaking and more tired than he'd ever been in his life, "tell me the gate's close..." 

"No worries, Lord. Grubby's nearly done digging." 

"And the hornbeasts?" 

"They've left the trail. Be careful, but I don't think they'll be a problem anymore." 

The Overlord unsteadily left the chaos inside the temple and through the doors. He rounded a small trail along a chasm with small streams of water creeping down the walls, ploughed through a gorge full of poisonously pink flowers, and... 

"Come home, Sayron," Kelda's voice whispered in his ear.

Minions hurried down along the staircase leading to the private quarters, and up from the lower levels of the Tower. The last of them were just in time to see the blue light flash up – something that hadn't happened in months. 

For the first time since he'd left Nordhaven's icy fjords with the ship, Lord Sayron was coming back to his domain. 

Gnarl bowed, silently and so deep his ears trailed along the floor, as his Master descended to the black marble of the throne room. The Minions, now present in every corner of the great hall, cheered and shouted. 

Sayron looked around, a smile breaking through on his face. It was good to be home.  
>From next to the throne, Kelda approached him, her red hair gleaming like copper and her green eyes glistening like stars. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulled the cloth from his mouth and kissed him fiercely. <p>

Then, much too soon for Sayron's liking, she broke the embrace, clenched an iron Nordbergian fist and hit him so hard his helmet rang like the Midwinter bells. 

"K-Kelda!" Sayron protested, staggering on his legs and wondering when the world would cease its shaking. 

"Don't do that ever again!" the Tower lady snapped. "You're in _big_ trouble, mister!" 

"Already?" he moaned. In the corner of his eye he saw Gnarl grinning to himself. 

"Yes, already! You tactless... thoughtless… irresponsible…" 

"I'm back, aren't I?" Sayron countered, his hands pressed against his quivering helmet. "What's..." 

Kelda came to stand right in front of him, straightening out to his shoulder height. "Aren't you forgetting something, Mister Overlord?" 

Gnarl shuffled towards them, his hands folded beneath his cloak. "I must confess, Lord, you've left something valuable in the Everlightian jungle. It's no hurry as the leader of your horde has as much priority as you grant her, but..." 

"...But still you're going back as soon as you can walk straight again and you're going to find Jinx, do you hear me!" 

The Overlord moaned, staggered back to the throne, curled up as tightly as he could and pulled all the cushions over his head.

Somewhere east in the Everlightian tsingy an excited yell resounded. 

A small creature, covered in bruises and scratches and his torn tuque hat covered in spiky green seeds, struggled out between the last rocks. "We're out!" he called over his shoulder. 

"Keep it down, Kniff," came the muffled answer. "Did you forget the avalanche already? We had to dig Minc out entirely, remember, genius?" 

A second brown Minion, a bow across his shoulder, jumped out with a wide grin. "Am alive, right?" 

A third figure clambered out of the tsingy at last, two pairs of glowing arms around her neck, the inner fire selectively not touching her skin. Parch and Blister's feet weren't bleeding anymore, but it was better for them not to walk yet. 

Jinx straightened out. The jungle in front of her was a welcome sight after they'd spent the entire night and morning in the tsingy. 

There was, however, a plus. 

She turned. "Are you coming or what?" 

Raspy voices answered her. A fiery glow played over the rock face. And a moment later five Minions, two reds, three browns, jumped out of the tsingy, following the one they looked upon as their horde leader. 

The tsingy had been on the spider's trail. Logical, actually...  
>The night had been full of battle, and her hands were red with rash, but now she had a horde to compete with. <p>

Jinx smiled. Then she turned back to the jungle and sniffed. A strange smell floated towards her, faint now, but she had the feeling she would almost be able to taste it soon... 

It reminded her of open sewers... and a kind of exotically prepared fish she'd smelled in the harbour market of the city she'd once called home... 

She hoisted the reds onto her shoulders a little higher, touched her dagger, looked back at her horde, and confidently stepped into the wilderness.

**Poor Master. He goes through all that only for Kelda to yell at him then order him to go back and get Jinx. Well readers it seems Jinx is doing quite well, leader of the Horde and can't be controlled by the Master's magic. Hope you enjoyed, review or spiders will tie you up and drag you to a faraway forest.**

**I'm serious.**


	10. Three Steps Back

**Okay loyal readers. I know a LOT of people have been reading this so please will you leave a review? I did not create this story and I do not take credit for it. But I did get permission from Sunjinjo (author can be found on deviantart) to post this on fanfiction to help promote it. So please review anonymous ones are accepted as well. Thank you.**

**So last time our Overlord was shipwrecked in that blasted Everlight forest and separated from us. By us I mean us minions. Not Minion minions but loyal servants of the Master.**

**Where was I? Oh yes, Master was stranded in the forest, having to fight off nasty spiders and poor Jinxie suffered terribly when the spider webbing touched her skin. Enjoy.**

Three steps back

"I don't see the use of this, Sayron." Kelda impatiently tapped her foot to the black marble. "You'd return to the jungle, remember? You promised. You've rested enough in these five days." 

"I didn't promise anything," Sayron countered. "Plus, that's one of the benefits of my job. Even if I make a decision, I can come back on it whenever I please." His eyes rippled for a moment. "And I rather feel like visiting my old birthing grounds again." 

"It is certainly true you need to be sure your subjects remember your face, Sire," Gnarl agreed. "They have Minions in Nordberg but your presence will work miracles, you'll see." 

Sayron turned back to Kelda. "And you're coming with me, aren't you? You can make sure all is well yourself." 

"Oh, you can count on that." The Tower Lady firmly gripped Sayron's muscular arm. "Activate that portal!" 

Sayron looked up. "Nordberg," his deep voice commanded.

A gust of warm wind and a blue flash sliced through the clear, cool Nordbergian air. Briefly after, as heavy metal boots and lighter leather shoes descended the Tower Gate stairs, excited calls in raspy voices resounded. 

"Master!" 

"The Master returns!" 

"Mistress Kelda!" 

Sayron briefly smiled at the handful of Minions approaching the gate as he walked past them on his way to town. Kelda inspected them more closely. "Sayron!" 

The Overlord turned. "What is it?" 

"I know the Netherworld armour. These are different." 

The Minion at the front proudly straightened out. "Were a gift, Mistress." 

Sayron looked down at him. "From who?" 

"Nordberg, Master! Finally cooperating after big slaughter two weeks back. Scared them good," the brown grinned. 

"_They_ gave you armour?" Kelda asked incredulously, inspecting the gleaming Nordbergian steel. 

"And new weapons!" another Minion laughed, raising his long, shiny dagger. The weapon had a grip made out of deer bone. 

"Wait a minute," Sayron frowned. "Slaughter?" 

"I think we'd best ask this to the people, Sayron," Kelda answered softly. "You did stay away for too long. Come with me." She took his gauntleted hand and dragged him with her to the town. The Minions cheerfully ran after them.

A strange, penetrating smell floated through the wilderness. 

The great cassowary was a bone-tough bird, all stabbing beak and slashing claws, but even he knew he shouldn´t get anywhere near that smell. Still, he did. For he, a large and proud predator from the Everlightian jungle, was on the run for something on the opposite side of the smell. Something he hadn´t encountered before, but what hunted him from the trees and the forest floor with arrows, fire and strangling ropes that had already left slashes on the gleaming blue skin of his long, featherless neck. 

The enormous bird briefly looked behind him. He´d better not have. 

From the thick foliage, a shade jumped at him, arms and legs spread. He was hit squarely, a strangling embrace closed his windpipe, a shining blade was smeared with bird blood and then all was over. 

An excited call echoed through the jungle. "Prey!" 

"Jinxie has it!" another voice passed the message on. "Blister, Parch, Smoky, Yelp! Come help toast it!" 

"Hurry up, Blister! Hungry!" another one snarled. At the same time, a horde of brown and red Minions broke through the undergrowth and crowded around the kneeling figure, still wiping her knife on the cassowary´s black plumage. Last, a middle-sized red Minion limped into sight. Blister´s leg was strong enough to stand on again, but until he´d had Mortis´ help, he wouldn´t be able to walk properly. 

That didn´t keep him from lighting a huge fire, with the help of his clan members. A little while later, the cassowary had been reduced to a pile of blackened bones, in many cases sporting the marks of pointy teeth and sometimes even deprived of the marrow, and a load of dark feathers some Minions now added to their armour. Minc, the brown with the elven bow, put the bird´s ridged skull on his own head, so the large beak stabbed out in front of his face. 

In the middle of the din of raspy voices, a scraping noise resounded. Jinx was cutting one of the bird´s ribs with her dagger, her eyes vigilantly watching the forest around her. Her new ropes, fabricated out of tough vines and woven with aerial roots for extra strength, lay around her shoulders in the old, familiar fashion. On the ends, they were weighted with small stones also woven into them. She started to perfect them further and further.  
>Like the Minions, Jinx had clearly been in the jungle for a few days now. She distrusted the water just as much as her horde did, so her hair was one tangle and her face a mass of dark smears, but her eyes looked out of it sparkling like gems. Her shirt was torn and spattered with the blood of immediately healed wounds. Her foot wrappings were gone, but the totally frayed underside of her pants was the witness of the fact her feet had been healed even more often than the rest of her body. <p>

She cut a small splinter off the rib and pinched it through the red cloth around her head. There were quite some bone splinters already in there, next to two nasty, rough mouth parts formerly belonging to an insect or other large arthropod. 

Jinx rose. "Follow me, my horde," she commanded. 

She wasn´t aware of the eight glowing eyes, seemingly floating in the empty air between the leaves. But there was an excited, hissing whisper rising from them, like a discussion nearly decided.

Once in Nordberg, the Minions ran out in front of Sayron and Kelda to an alley the Overlord hadn´t been before, and he thought was constructed only after his departure to the Netherworld as a seven-year old. The front Minion politely knocked a wooden door like all the others. It almost immediately creaked open. 

A ginger-haired man stepped out. Involuntarily, Sayron froze as he recognized him. 

Kivner was fully healed. Not the faintest scar crossed the face with the long nose and the short red beard. He was the same man he´d been before the Nordhaven inferno. 

"The worshipper!" Gnarl hissed. "So he hasn´t just survived the inferno, he also went to Nordberg and… oh, I think I understand what´s happened, Sire! Oh, that´s beautiful…" 

"Lord Sayron!" Kivner smiled, like he´d just been pleasantly surprised. Sayron backed away from the thought that just might be the case. He dug his memory. He had known, somewhere deep down, it would be wise to remember this face. "Kivner, isn´t it?" 

The smile widened as the ginger man heard his name. "Certainly, lord. Your faithful servant." 

The light brown eyes narrowed for a moment, barely noticeable, but Sayron saw it. Kivner immediately spoke on. "During your absence I´ve made sure Nordberg understood your intentions. I´ve been awaiting your return." He stepped out of the door opening and into the snowless street. "I must humbly request you to follow me." 

There was something strange about the way Kivner spoke, Sayron pondered as he and Kelda, followed by a small horde of Nordbergian Minions, strode after the ginger man. In some way the Nordbergian accent wasn´t right, or the intonation was off… he couldn´t put his finger on it, but… 

All of his doubts and wariness were, however, wiped away as he saw what was in front of him. 

The cliffs at the back of the village had been turned into a second quarry. Dozens of Nordbergians were busy with pickaxes, chippings and oar were taken away on all sides and some distance away a great smithy fire roared up. Hammer blows were audible. Dust wafted up in great clouds and the sound of the pickaxes filled the cool air. 

Kelda laid a hand on Sayron´s shoulder. "It seems we have enough armour and weapons here to let a great deal more Minions into the horde, darling." 

A grin broke through on the Overlord´s face. He abruptly spun to face Kivner, so his sash swung behind him. "Kivner, I think we´ll stay here for a couple of days." 

The ginger man grinned as well and bowed jauntily, and because of the contrast in feelings Sayron´s words caused with Kelda, the Tower lady didn´t even notice that movement was far too elegant for a Nordbergian.

A few days later, the Everlightian jungle. 

Out at sea, the highest peaks of the island had been clearly visible, but at this moment they rose up into a remarkably massive blanket of clouds, so thick it almost turned solid in a heavy layer of silvery mist, sucking all colour from the forest and covering every leaf in glistening drops. A motionless silence hung over the jungle, just broken by the lonely cries of birds and beasts, echoing their way out of the audible. 

Then, a slowly climbing figure appeared, clearer as it approached. And another one. Soon, a row of climbers worked their way up the slope, some of them casting a golden glow into the fog. The breaking of small twigs disturbed the heavy silence. 

Jinx and her horde were now completely adapted to Everlight. The black-haired girl had taken it for a fact they'd be stuck here for a while, if they'd ever find their way back to the Netherworld. Everlight was so vast, and the chance they'd run into a Tower Gate so small, she'd swapped searching for surviving. 

That was also the reason she turned as fast as a tigress and had her ropes aggressively at the ready within half a second as something threw itself at Rampus, the brown Minion walking behind her. The reinforced vines swiftly shot out to the great, gleaming black spider, even before it had had the chance of sinking its mandibles into his throat. The Minion scrambled backwards and drew his weapon. In the meantime, the horde had turned into a fighting chaos rolling on the forest floor. 

Jinx threw her soaked hair out of her face and cast out her ropes to the half dozen of other spiders. At the same time, Kniff wrapped a strong arm under another arthropod's head, Minc jumped back to riddle a second with a volley of self-made, bone splinter arrows and three others flamed up beneath the fireballs of the four reds. 

Jinx' rope wrapped itself around the waist of the last spider, after which she pulled it towards her and sliced it open from throat to silk glands. Brownish entrails fell between the dewy ferns. 

She tightened the red cloth around her head. "Great job, guys." 

Minc gathered his intact arrows. Kniff wiped his dagger. The reds extinguished the fire around their hands. 

Clout looked about him. "Cocoon near?" 

"You'd think so, with all these guards." Jinx stepped forward, further up the slope. "Have a good look around. It's easy to miss in this fog." She raised her head to the trees herself, a hand on the bone hilt of her dagger. 

A soft hissing resounded through the whiteness. 

Several Minions froze. Just their glowing yellow eyes shot between the trees and the undergrowth. Jinx took one more step and then stopped as well. 

"Snake?" Minc mumbled, muffled beneath his cassowary beak. 

The hissing returned, clearer now. It had a throaty undertone, clearly not belonging to something as banal as a snake… 

Rampus' ears swivelled towards the sound. Kniff turned as quietly as he could as it suddenly came from the other side as well. 

A small shade appeared between the trees further up the slope. Jinx drew her dagger and took one rope off her shoulder. 

The shade slowly approached them. Then, suddenly, it accelerated enormously and launched itself right into the middle of the group. Several Minions already raised their weapons… 

A rasping laugh. Clout had raised his arms, not to thrust his sword forward, but to throw them around the newcomer's shoulders. "Manky!" he yelled. 

The shade turned out to be a new brown Minion, a small axe hanging from his belt and clad in black fur like the rest of his clan. Not the slightest trace of spider silk stuck to his body.  
>Jinx knelt down and inspected the cheerfully grinning Minion from head to toe. "How did you get –" she started, but abruptly fell silent as something hissed next to her ear. <p>

A moment later however, the hiss changed into chuckling. Jinx' eyes suddenly stared into two glowing orbs with large, dark pupils, calculating, narrow and with a reptilian look in them. 

They blinked and were gone. A suffocating stench reached her nose, the same smell that had been hanging around them for days but stronger than ever. 

"You!" Clout called out. 

Clout was the oldest Minion they had, Jinx realized. A Minion who still remembered the days of Vessperion, before the Minion clans separated… 

From the mist, eight glowing eyes came forward. As she looked on wide-eyed, four skinny bodies materialized around them. 

The green Minions were, again, unique. Their skin was scaly and spotted, their limbs long and thin. From their leafy loincloths muscular tails emerged, at the end sprouting yellowy spikes. Their faces were sly, their ears long and versatile. From their lower jaws small canines stuck up. The stench reached its peak. 

The four of them approached the horde with fluent, swift motions. Jinx caught a glimpse of glistening, razor-sharp claws, and she silently was very glad these Minions were on her side… or could she be really sure of that? 

"Jagged," the largest of them whispered as he stood right in front of Jinx, nodding curtly. He grinned, a shocking display of carnivorous teeth vanishing into an expression of impregnable slyness before the girl had even blinked her eyes. "Leader of the green clan." He gestured to his companions. "Whisper, Scythe, Ramul." 

Jinx nodded at them. "My name is Jinx," she said, a little unnerved by the sudden volume of her own voice. "Leader of the brown horde." 

"We know. Remarkable," Jagged hissed. "A human leader and no Master. "Where is he?" 

Jinx had expected it, but now she was sure they'd been spied on for days. Still, she carefully kept her expression of calmness. "We were shipwrecked on the western shore," she answered. "I haven't seen lord Sayron ever since. You don't have information either, then." 

"Didn't hope for a return," came the whispered answer. One of the others, Scythe, Jinx thought was his name, grinned with those words. 

Kniff pulled at her ragged shirt. "These wild Minions," he muttered with pressure. "Freed Manky, but…" 

"We don't know whose side they're on," Jinx understood. She was aware of a division behind her. Some Minions were glad to see the greens, others were nervous. But Manky, who had been freed from his spidersilk cocoon by them, was still grinning without concern… 

"You know this island," Jinx started in a calm voice. "I want you to ensure us a safe passage to the western coast." 

"Safe?" Scythe mocked. "Spiders, plants, gnomes, grass bears…" Another Minion, one of his feet wrapped in what seemed to be blue cloth, chuckled in agreement. "Your idea of safe…?" he asked with a claw outstretched in question. 

"…is not safe in the literal meaning of the word but rather fast enough to not be noticed by danger, something I have the reason to expect when travelling with you to our Overlord, Ramul," Jinx answered, still with her carefully dosed calmness. 

Ramul looked at her with narrow yellow eyes for a moment. His pupils contracted to hair-thin slits. Then he turned to Jagged. 

The largest green Minion let his gaze travel over Jinx' horde. Several Minions, including Kniff, looked back defiantly. 

He nodded. "Taking them to the Hive." 

The other three grinned as he faded into the mist. Then they followed his example. 

"If the brown leader can follow," came the chuckling answer from, apparently, totally empty air.

The throne room was filled with the clash of metal on metal. Gnarl kept his ears folded against his head carefully and looked up at the large net the Minions had spanned beneath the portal with a smile. A moment later his eyes were on the mist pool again, where Sayron and Kelda, along with Kivner and some other Nordbergians, stood at the Tower Gate. More Nordbergians and some of the Minions were busy with the town´s final productions. The swords, axes, spears and enormous collections of arrowheads were being loaded into the gate, from where they clashed down into the throne room. 

It had been like this for several days now. The first days, there had also been an enormous stock of meat, enough to keep the barracks fed for months to come. But it was nearly over now. 

As the advisor watched, the final pieces of armour were laid in the gate and descended into the great hall. He nodded at the Minions on the scaffolding on both sides of the net. They grabbed the corners firmly and jumped, slowed in their fall by ropes attached to their own armour. The net was tied together. Soon it lay on the throne room floor, where a new team of Minions dragged it away. 

"You can come down, Lord," Gnarl spoke to the mist pool. He saw the Overlord briefly turning to Kivner. 

"I´m so glad you saw who to obey," he grinned to the ginger man. 

"There never was any doubt, lord," Kivner answered with a voice as slick as honey. Gnarl raised his eyebrows for a moment. Kivner was still subservient, but in another way than before… he couldn´t quite lay his finger on it… 

"I´m looking forward to your next visit!" the advisor heard, just before Sayron and Kelda stepped into the gate and the mist pool abruptly faded. 

With a blinding blue flame the two reappeared into the throne room. Sayron immediately roared with laughter. "I never suspected it´d be this easy," he laughed. "They´re throwing themselves at my feet!" 

"As they should, Sire," Gnarl spoke. He kept himself from warning his Master. In this remarkably positive situation, he was the only one expected to busy himself sniffing out possible pitfalls… 

Kelda eyed the enormous net full of metal gears of war. "Where are we going to put those? I don´t think there´s enough room in the armoury at the forges…" 

"I suggest the lower levels, Sire," Gnarl remarked. "With so many good pieces of armour, the younger Minions soon will be fit to fight in the horde, but first they´ll have to polish their skills and they can train best down there. It´d be useful for the material to be there as well." 

"Agreed," Sayron answered airily. "Take them there." He pulled Kelda close. "I have to celebrate the fact I have Nordberg completely under my thumb…" 

Kelda smiled briefly, but then pushed him away. "Weren´t you about to do something as soon as you got back, Sayron?" 

The glow in the orange eyes subdued a bit. He nodded reluctantly. 

"Jinx´ll be on her way to you as well," Kelda encouraged him. "She´s good with the wilderness. And you might even find the green Minions on your way." She stepped back, but kept looking at him with her piercing green eyes. "Good luck." 

Sayron kept looking at her for a moment, but then raised his head to the portal and outstretched a hand. "Everlight," the command resounded.

"Thank Vessperion for Grubby´s Minion Gates," Sayron muttered some moments later, after he´d returned at the rocky plateau in the middle of the Everlightian jungle with a bolt of sizzling blue lightning. He outstretched the gauntlet bearing the amber gem to the brown gate, after which Stripe, Scabies, Gloob and the others came tumbling out. After ten or so Minions he turned to the red gate, the only other to flame to the fullest. Hoarse came flying like a fire wheel, immediately followed by inexperienced, recently spawned reds. The stronger members of the red clan were all stuck in cocoons, or they were dead… or maybe they´d been found by Jinx, something he secretly did hope for. 

He looked back at the horde. He didn´t know that many of these Minions. Most of the weak after Scabies and Hoarse hadn´t fought that often yet. They were wearing proper armour, but that was only thanks to Nordberg. He thought to himself he really was glad with the extra material – metal was too scarce and the only armour the Minions were wearing normally was paid with the blood of the previous owners. The Netherworld had been a leech, and a hungry one at that, but those days might just be coming to an end. 

Another leap forward. Sayron allowed himself a brief smile as he followed the rocky trail downhill from the plateau where the gate had been dug. 

On all sides, the jungle reacted to their presence. Birds and small animals hurried away in the treetops, there was something bigger rustling in the undergrowth and right in front of his feet an enormous, perfectly camouflaged butterfly furiously beat its wings to rise up in time. On the inside of its wings, it was a magnificent, flaming red. Sayron tried to stomp on it, but missed. 

He looked up and swore. 

In front of them a high, steep rock face rose up, on their side decorated with a huge carved depiction of the Mother Goddess, again in her bloated form. Here on Everlight the cult seemed to favour that form, even in their own priestesses. 

That way was shut. Even if the reds could climb the cliff, he himself would be useless. But his swear was mainly because of the water to his right. The path abruptly fell away in a rushing stream of water from further uphill. Across it, a trail led further into the jungle, but the Minions wouldn´t be able to follow. 

Unless… Sayron looked harder. There on the opposite shore grew a small tree he might be able to cut down using his sword… 

He laid his weapon across his shoulder and splashed into the stream.

Kniff skidded down the muddy slope, lost his footing, slammed into the ground face-first and slid down the last bit that way so his teeth rattled. Then he scrambled up, spat out a large gleaming beetle and ran on. 

It wasn´t easy following greens, he thought miserably. But he wasn´t at the very back. Jinx was having more trouble with Blister on her shoulders. He heard her coming down the slope, but didn´t look back, for the danger of losing sight of the horde in the lustrous undergrowth. 

Yesterday had been easier. The green Minions might be invisible thanks to their own magical camouflage, but the smell was easy to follow and they´d only slightly miscalculated the right direction a couple of times. And even then, the greens had often returned to point them in the right way again with the glow of a yellow eye or a three-clawed slash across a mossy tree trunk. 

But now they were, indeed, going too fast to run into danger and give it a reasonable chance to cause them any trouble. 

He cut himself a way through a bush with fleshy, gleaming leaves with his dagger, stopped halfway and then simply clawed himself out with his nails. At the moment he wrung his head outside he suddenly looked into two narrow eyes in a faintly visible face. 

Kniff blinked. "Whisper?" 

"Yes," was the hissing reply. "Keep running. Almost there." 

"Where?" Kniff said, faltering while trying to get his foot out of the bush. He looked back briefly. Jinx was still following, Blister´s glowing eyes just above her shoulder. 

"The Master," Whisper answered. "Jagged felt. He´s close." 

Kniff´s eyes flashed and his ears flew up. "The Master! How does he know?" 

"Animals flee," hissed Whisper. He grabbed Kniff´s claw and pulled him along. "Birds fly up and screech. And now he knows feeling of other Minions again…" 

Kniff turned. "Jinxie!" he called back. "Master´s close!" 

Jinx raised her head and nearly slipped now she wasn´t paying attention to the ground anymore. Her eyes gleamed and she nodded. "Good! About time!" 

"You alright?" Kniff asked, still being dragged along by his once again invisible helper. 

Jinx grinned briefly, a flash of teeth just as fleeting as the smile of a green. "´Course." She pulled a sprint to catch up with Kniff and Whisper. "The slope´s getting less steep already…" 

On her back, Blister looked forward intently. "Strange grass," he muttered. 

They were, indeed, surrounded by strange, high and thin growth with stiff stalks. 

"Tallgrass," Whisper said. His eyes became visible as he looked back at them. His pupils were alertly widened. 

"What does that mean?" Jinx asked, suddenly uncomfortable. 

The green Minion blinked rapidly. 

"Grass bears," he said.

Aches, a strong Minion with a Netherworld-made, black-plumed helmet, jumped over the loose tree trunk with wide eyes. It was only a thin tree and he was absolutely not happy with it, not even when he landed next to his Master on the other side of the wild stream. As he tried to control his breathing he watched the rest of the horde follow him. 

A swift smile passed over his face at the sight of a young red Minion, clearly terrified of the water spraying below his feet, staggering halfway across the trunk. As he watched the newborn fell to his barely armoured knees, his glittering eyes wide with panic. Aches didn´t lift a finger. If Minions were weak, they didn´t deserve to travel with the horde. 

His smile faded as Hoarse shoved him out of the way with a white-hot hand and ran onto the trunk again, hoisting the youngster to his feet. The brown gnashed his teeth at the red leader as he came back, a hand firmly pressed to the sizzling burn on his arm. Hoarse didn´t even look at him. 

The horde gradually gathered around Sayron. Aches strolled to his spot just behind Scabies.

The Master started walking. 

Sayron looked about him with mild surprise. The growth had changed. It now consisted mainly of long, straight stalks, segmented like spines, stiffly shooting out of the soil. Often they grew over the path they wanted to follow, so both his sword and the Minions´ weapons were put to use. 

It was after passing a cluster of those stalks that the Overlord froze. 

"By the Unholy Lord! What kind of teddy-shaped monster is this?" Gnarl wondered out loud.

"I´ve never seen anything like it… even in the lands around the old Tower…" 

Sayron cautiously approached the enormous, black and white creature. He had experience with the larger beasts of Everlight… but the creature seemed to be just fine where it was, a claw full of the strange plants and gnawing peacefully. "Gnarl…" the Overlord muttered. 

"Ewww, it´s just so fluffy! It´s repulsive! My eyes! My eyes!" 

"What wonderful fur that beast has," Kelda admired it. "I bet it would look much better on me, though." 

Sayron smiled briefly. "That might be arranged, love." 

"Best to leave that monster to its munching, Sire," Gnarl discouraged him. "Remember last time?" 

Sayron shrugged and turned. "Maybe later…" He raised his sword and swung it into a new cluster of stalks, just as Gnarl finished his sentence: "It seems to have a taste for that tall grass…" 

The gargantuan blade hit the stalks with a rattling, far too loud sound. Exactly at that moment, an enormous roar got up behind them. 

Sayron spun. The grass bear hauled itself up on its hind legs and swung a heavy black claw in his direction. 

The Overlord´s orange eyes widened and paled to a fearful yellow. "Oh, no…" 

Further in the jungle a comparable roar resounded. The sound of breaking branches approached way too fast – from more than one direction. 

"Run, Sire!"

A roar, faint like faraway rainfall. 

Jagged yanked up his head, his pupils narrowed to slits. He let his body solidify to visibility, followed by several browns and reds slamming into him almost immediately. He spun around hissing, just to be answered by a loosely strung bow and a grin behind a cassowary beak. Minc narrowed his own eyes. "Was that?" 

"Trouble," Jagged snarled. Next to him Scythe and Ramul solidified from thin air, the first with a faint smile around his canines. 

Parch skidded to a halt sharply and nervously looked between the three greens. "What happening?" As the greens remained silent, he looked back. The rest of their small horde came down the slope at an alarming speed, Jinx, Kniff and Blister in their midst. As the red Minion looked on, Whisper became visible and joined his three clan members. 

The roar returned. 

"Grass bears?" asked Jinx. 

Whisper nodded. "Master needs our help…" 

Ramul hissed at him. Immediately, Jagged swung out his claws to the Minion with the blue cloth around his foot. Ramul gestured with his chin. "Are only with four!" 

Parch´ eyes glistened for a moment. He exchanged glances with Jinx. However, before she could say anything Jagged slashed the air in front of Ramul. "Have a horde now." 

Jinx looked between Jagged and Parch. "Let´s go then," she spoke.

Sayron cut himself a way through the now much denser tallgrass. In front of him, behind him, everywhere he could hear the approaching grass bears. The more plants he cut down to get away, the more aggressive they became. His Minions were still running along with him, but some had stayed behind to slow the bears and it didn´t seem like they´d had any success… 

He cut away the stalks in front of him. His now pastel yellow eyes widened even further. Behind the stalks, a grass bear had been waiting for him. 

The swipe of the great front paw was crushing, so powerful the Overlord was slammed into the ground immediately. Stripe, Gloob and the others instantly jumped in front of him, weapons at the ready, but the grass bear wiped them away like they didn´t even exist.

Hoarse and the reds, who´d climbed on top of the nearby rock formations, let a rain of fire descend on the beast, but the bear´s fur was damp and so massive it was like setting soaked moss alight. 

Sayron rammed a gauntleted hand below him and tried to get up, but he could hear massive paws descend behind him as well. 

The grass bear in front of him rose to its hind legs. Sayron rolled out of the way before the front paws could crush him. The bear landed on all fours, but immediately swiped a paw in the Overlord´s direction again, a stroke powerful enough to separate his helmeted head from his body – 

– when the bear suddenly screamed in pain. Behind him, another high yell like it resounded.  
>It magically appeared on the grass bear´s back: a skinny green creature with long, versatile ears and glowing yellow eyes. Ivory spikes ran along the spine. The creature hissed ferociously while it spun around on the white fur with the speed of a whirlwind, stabbing long, razor-sharp claws everywhere in the bear´s body. Apparently, there was even time to wink at the Overlord slyly. <p>

"Green Minions!" Gnarl cheered. 

Some colour crept back into Sayron´s eyes. He stared up from his horizontal position, not quite able to grasp the fact he´d finally found what he had set sail for all those months ago.

Or they had found him, more like. A lost Minion clan. 

"Yeeeeaaaaaaaaahhh!" 

A new creature threw itself onto the writhing grass bear. It immediately wrapped a strangling vine around the animal´s throat, pulled itself down and planted a dagger in the back of the neck. The green Minion scrambled around the head and stabbed all his claws under the bear´s jaw. A yanking movement, a last desperate gasp, and the beast thudded between the lustrous ferns. 

Jinx slammed into the ground just in front of Sayron, scrambled to her feet and outstretched her hand to him. Her filthy face sported an uncontrollable grin. "Hello, Lord." 

"Like you´d be able to get me up," the Overlord muttered. He pushed himself up and picked up his sword. Jinx went to stand next to him, her ropes at the ready. By the sound of it, more bears were close. The jungle was teeming with them here. 

"How did you find us?" Sayron asked, without diverting his gaze from the undergrowth. 

Jinx slightly bent her knees. "We followed the sun. Then we found the greens. They were very helpful," she grinned sourly. 

"We?" 

"I´m with my own horde, Lord." 

"You´re part of that horde, brown leader," Sayron corrected her, just when a new bear broke through the stalks on his side. He immediately stormed forwards, his sword low to get it beneath the beast´s stomach. Instantly two greens jumped on its back as well, using the distraction Sayron, Jinx and a couple of browns provided to kill the bear within two minutes. 

"That´s Jagged," Jinx pointed, meaning the green Minion who´d already killed two bears.

"And that´s Scythe…" The newcomer grinned broadly. Jagged nodded briefly and then ran off to block the bears before they could get to Sayron. Halfway down the trail, he faded out of sight. 

From the opposite direction a heavy snort disturbed the sudden silence. 

Sayron and Jinx turned like one. Scythe´s pupils widened. 

This grass bear didn´t look too good. Yellow foam dripped from its maw and its little eyes spun round uncontrolled. Still it managed to knock Jinx into a rattling cluster of stalks with one blow. The sound enraged it even more – it growled hoarsely and roared so loud Scythe´s ears were blown backwards. 

The green Minion took a jump, but didn´t get a good footing on the greasy fur. He almost slipped off at the flank and needed all of his strength and agility to just stay in place, without getting the chance to launch an attack. 

Jinx pulled herself up on a quivering stalk, a numbing haze in front of her eyes. She saw how Sayrons sword slid off the bear´s fur blow after blow. 

"We need more Minions," she muttered. She straightened out. "Kniff! Parch! Minc! Rampus! Yelp!" 

"Jinxie?" Kniff shouted from further into the tallgrass. She spun around and saw a fireball rise up from between the stalks in answer. They were coming. 

The bear bared its teeth in a rattling growl and came thundering at her over the now formed meadow. Sayron had been smashed into the ground and lay still, but Jinx saw his eyes glowing faintly. A heartbeat later, however, she was forced to look away, because otherwise she couldn´t cast out her rope to the high, safe branches of a nearby tree. The bear slammed itself into the trunk, so hard it surprised Jinx it remained rooted. 

Little, spinning eyes looked at her from a black-masked face. Jinx stared back with grey eyes as hard as diamond. She twisted her rope in her hand, but had little hope – certainly not when she saw Scythe, lying half between the still upright stalks with his eyes closed and his ears limp. He had to be unconscious, because he didn´t turn invisible. 

The bear threw itself into her tree again. This time the trunk trembled so fiercely Jinx nearly fell out. She knew the tree wouldn´t survive the next blow. 

The grass bear knew that as well, judging by the look of sly madness in its eyes. 

It swiped. The trunk splintered with a terrible noise, and Jinx was dragged down with the falling crown. And three brown Minions threw themselves at the bear´s throat screaming.  
>Minc spanned three arrows at once and aimed for the eyes, but missed because of the beast´s irregular movement, causing the arrows to fly over its head uselessly. Rampus managed to swing himself around the throat, but his sickle didn´t pierce the heavy fur. Jinx remembered she´d recommended him a new weapon – he´d gotten this sickle off a Minion deceased long ago, before Mortis´ time. Now he was experiencing the downside of such an ancient weapon for himself. <p>

Kniff buried his claws in a front paw and worked himself up. He managed to remain on top of the bear´s head for a split second, his arms wide for balance, and cut off one of the round, black ears. The constant roar reached a climax as the blood came trickling down one side of the masked face. The pain gave the bear enough strength to bat away all three Minions, in the direction where Scythe still lay motionless and Sayron was painfully climbing to his feet. 

"_Jinx!_" 

She looked up. 

Atop the rock formation behind her were Smoky, Blister and Parch. The most agile of the reds, the one who taught her to climb, winked at her. 

Then he allowed the two others to grab him. 

Parch seemed to fly. His glowing body flashed over the meadow covered in broken stalks of tallgrass, straight toward the grass bear. He hit the beast´s broad shoulder, but immediately clawed himself in place with the nails that´d find a hold even on a smooth rock ceiling. He swiftly climbed over the insanely writhing bear´s back to the head, pulled open the maw with all of his claws, stuck both his hands inside and, at the moment the bear shut its maw again snarling, sent a roaring column of flame that wouldn´t look too bad on a dragon into its gut. 

The bear shivered. It tried to snort, but could only breathe out – accompanied by a flow of thick grey smoke streaming from its nose and between its teeth. 

It yelped pitifully. Then it fell over with a crushing thud, and moved no more. A constant stream of smoke rose from the open maw. 

Parch lay still at the head. Jinx wrestled out of the remains of her tree and knelt next to him.

The glittering eyes blinked open and focused on her. 

"J-Jinx." 

"Wow, Parch," she whispered. "Wow." 

Behind them two yellow eyes crept closer. A moment later Ramul smacked Scythe into the head with his flat hand, so hard the senseless green Minion was immediately awake. 

"What use are you?" the socked green grinned.

Not that much later they all stood on the other side of the stream again, on the rocky trail. Jagged, Whisper and Ramul had led the attack on the other grass bears, and with success. There were quite a lot of casualties among the browns and reds, but not nearly as much as when the greens wouldn´t have been present. There was reason to be grinning as wide as most Minions were. 

Eventually Jagged straightened out to Sayron. When he got his attention, he respectfully bowed his head and lowered his ears in the universal gesture of unconditional loyalty. When he looked up again, his expression was one of worry. 

"Master," he spoke. "Have got problems." 

Sayron looked down on the leader of the new clan. "As Gnarl says, as long as you help us, I´ll help you, and if you continue helping us as impressively as back there I´m willing to do a lot." 

"We´re all," Jagged whispered with wide pupils. "Are no more green Minions. Hive was lost to trespassers´ hands… and rest of the clan is dead." 

Jinx held her breath for a moment. She knew that without a Hive, no new Minions were born, and on this dangerous island that meant big trouble even for greens. She looked up to Sayron. He was still looking down at the green leader calmly, his eyes a slightly more fiery shade of orange. "Trespassers? Fat tourists, protected by soldiers in gleaming armour?" 

"Yes, Master," Jagged hissed. "Took the Hive to an old temple. Can´t get in, is too well guarded. Much of the clan died inside." 

"Empire," Kniff spat. Next to him, Parch looked away. It seemed like the green clan had more problems than his red had had, stuck below Nordberg in a domain of fairies – at least the red Minions had _had_ a clan. Four greens… all that was left? It was too strange to comprehend. 

"Where is this temple?" Sayron asked.

Jagged turned and pointed east. "Deeper into wilderness, Master." He exchanged glances with his clan members. "Not through grass bear territory anymore…" 

"Good," the Overlord smiled. "I´ve had enough of them for quite a while." He straightened his back and looked up at the hill where the Tower Gate was located. "Okay, that trail leads into the right direction. Let´s go." 

"Lord," Gnarl´s voice creaked. "I appreciate your spirit. But there´s something you should see, here in the Netherworld." 

"What can be more important than finding the Hive?" Sayron asked irritatedly. 

"There´s a someone here to see you, Sire. A female someone." 

Something about the advisor´s voice made Sayron shiver. "I´d better come down then?" he asked, suddenly uncomfortable. 

"Yes, Master. You´d better come down." 

Sayron turned to the four greens. "Are you going to be alright here?" He knew the Minions couldn´t come along to the Netherworld. They´d die if they´d distance themselves from their Hive too far. They´d been lucky the source of their life force was still on the island. Only when the Hives where in his domain, the Minions were free to travel the world. 

Jagged nodded. "Will be here when you come back, Master." 

Sayron nodded back and started climbing the hilltop. When he looked back, the four greens were nowhere to be seen.

A blue flash announced their return. 

Jinx had to restrain herself not to fall to her knees and kiss the throne room´s gleaming black marble. She´d been considerably at home in the jungle, but the feeling of the warm, dry Netherworld air embracing her again was just wonderful. She took off the cloth around her head and shook out her damp hair. A heartbeat later she raised her hands in defence again, because she and Sayron were both rammed by Kelda, who wrapped her outstretched arms around them. The Tower lady was smiling wide, and as she saw who it was, Jinx soon had a broad grin on her face as well. "Kelda! Long time no see!" 

"I bugged him until he went back to find you, Jinx," the copper-haired Nordbergian chuckled. "But it seems you found _him_." 

"Don´t overdo it," Sayron rumbled. "I was nearly there." The Overlord broke the group hug, not that unfriendly, and stepped over to the throne.

Jinx followed him, sending a nasty grin around the Overlord´s back in Gnarl´s direction. "Hi, oldtimer." 

The elder Minion looked at her briefly, but ignored her, save the slight curve of the corner of his mouth. Then his expression became one of concern. "Master, I´d swear I recognize her," he spoke softly. 

"Who?" Sayron looked back at Jinx for a moment. 

"The visitor, Lord. Shall I bring her in?" 

Sayron turned again and slowly lowered himself to the throne. "...Yes. Call her in. I´m curious." 

The spike crown on the ceiling opened briefly. A small figure floated down. Jinx went to stand on the other side of the throne, next to Kelda. She narrowed her eyes. The visitor was indeed a woman, clad in a blue cloak with the heavy hood raised over her face. Just her mouth remained visible. 

"Why are you here? Speak up," Sayron commanded in a harsh voice. 

"I´m here to warn you about the path you are treading," the woman spoke. She was soft-spoken, but she had a tone of all-knowing authority to her voice. Jinx narrowed her eyes even further. She was sure she recognized this woman… and it was an important memory… but she couldn´t reach it… She was starting to suspect her death in Mortis´ net had done something to her memory, causing her to remember her previous life only in glimpses and dreams. 

The woman spoke on. "I have seen it all before… the Minions, the Dark Tower… the women! It is a pattern that will lead to your destruction." 

"Nonsense!" Gnarl chuckled darkly. "The Overlord is the only one who´ll be doing any destroying around here!" 

"I have watched you for many years… from the shadows." 

Sayron backed away slightly on his throne. 

"You need to see what future awaits you." 

Gnarl stroked his chin thoughtfully. He, too, found the answer to the woman´s identity to be just out of reach. 

"Seek answers in the old lands. The way is now open. The rest is up to you." 

With those words, the portal flashed a brilliant blue. The advisor looked up sharply. "A new gate?" he muttered by himself. As if to answer his question, an even smaller figure came down in the blue light and ran over to Gnarl straightaway. It was Grubby, the digger.

"Gate active in the Wasteland, Gnarl!" he shouted.

"The Wasteland!" Gnarl seemed to stiffen for a moment. Then he turned to Sayron and lowered his voice. "That´s the place where your father´s tower once stood, Sire!" he muttered excitedly. "The area once held great power, but it´s suffered some very turbulent times in the past… It´s certain to be in a chaotic and unpredictable state. I would advise extreme caution…" The advisor swallowed. "It´ll probably be upside down and inside out, but at least you´ll get to see the old country, Master…" 

"My father´s tower…" Sayron´s eyes misted over. "I´m going there." He rose. "…And you." 

The woman raised her head to the Overlord, but not far enough for her face to become visible. 

"You´re annoying me." 

The amber gem cut through the air as Sayron outstretched his arm. The floor beneath the woman opened. Gnarl stretched his neck and grinned. "Ha! …Oh…" 

Jinx gasped. Kelda clasped a hand to her mouth. 

The woman was floating above the opening. 

Sayron´s eyes paled to yellow and widened further than ever. The mouth beneath the hood curled in a smile. Then the mysterious visitor disappeared in a blue flame.

"These lands were once the location of the Dark Tower… the seat of Overlording power."  
>Sayrons eyes, still yellow, slid over the surroundings. The Overlord swallowed. Next to him, Jinx clasped her hands to her mouth, as her eyes started to water. <p>

"…At least until your predecessor mysteriously disappeared during a trip to the Infernal Abyss." 

"Are you sure we won´t run into him here?" Sayron muttered. 

They were surrounded by black rocks, sharp as shark teeth, clawing up to the inky sky in bizarre formations. At the jagged horizon hung a constant, unworldly blue glow. Tentacly, almost fluorescent purple plants clung to viable corners. Enormous mushrooms with the colour of meat soaked in seawater for months sprung up around the Tower Gate. A dry, stinking wind seemed to whisper ancient curses. 

Minion Gates drilled themselves out of the soil. Sayron raised an arm and called the Minions out. Most of them also gasped as they saw where they had arrived. Kniff and Parch immediately scurried over to Jinx. "Not good," Parch mumbled. Kniff was shivering uncontrollably. 

Sayron stepped forward. "Right, Gnarl, explain," he spoke to the advisor – just to have a voice around him, because the silence in this land was unbearable. Gnarl´s voice soon drowned out the rushing of the dead wind. 

"Without an Overlord the Minions fled to the Netherworld," he spoke. "After the Great Cataclysm ruined the Dark Tower, we never returned." The advisor paused. "See for yourself. Magic runs rampant here! Unrestrained!" 

"I can see that," Jinx muttered while beholding the valley below them, closed off by curved black stone daggers. There, among huge puddles of blue ooze, crawled dozens of gigantic, naked slugs of the same colour. Like the ooze, they were glowing faintly. Each of them sported three stalked eyes. 

"…And Minions are rather partial to not being turned inside out or growing an extra head," Gnarl hurried himself to say before the silence became too deep. "Unless it´s in the service of our Overlord, of course." 

"Cut it out, Gnarl," Sayron said, half automatically. Jinx smiled for a moment. 

"Sorry, Sire. This place is said to be the source of the great Cataclysm," the advisor carried on without faltering. "And the magical plague, which swept the land many years ago." 

Jinx stopped walking for a moment. The magical plague? 

She remembered that. When she was little, her city had buzzed with stories and rumours. A shadow, far to the east. People spontaneously turning grey with glowing eyes. Magic… completely on the loose. 

That was when it had started, she remembered. The fear of magic. The Sentinels and Eradicators of the Glorious Empire. Then magic had become something unnatural. 

If it had really started here, she could understand that all too well. 

"Although no one is quite sure what caused it," Gnarl spoke. He coughed. "You should explore, Lord. These lands once held many secrets and artefacts, which may now aid you against the Empire…" 

Their path led them upwards, onto a gigantic curved claw of black rock. To Jinx´ surprise the climb didn´t tire her at all. The air seemed to be different here, her body seemed lighter. The agile reds ran out in front of them, but came back soon enough – it was better to stick together. 

Then they arrived at the very tip of the peak, and Sayron gasped for breath. 

That was such a strange sound that Jinx first stared at him for a moment before following his gaze. 

Kniff´s ears trembled. Parch´ inner fire blazed up, his eyes were misted over. 

There, unbelievably far away, the old Tower stuck out of the waste at an angle. The gigantic size of it was only visible by the haziness – the enormous distance. Curved spikes, not so very different from the one they were standing on now, reached up to the black sky from the very top, and also stuck out halfway down. 

They were standing there for a long time, Sayron, Jinx and the horde, in complete silence. The wind, not warm and not cold, howled around the peak and swept along strange, old words. 

"That looming fortress was once the source of fear in this land," Gnarl eventually spoke softly. "This was once your spawning pit, Sire. Well, it was where your evil seed was planted, as it were. Your spawn-mother left before you were born. She didn´t feel that a Dark Tower was the right place to bring up a baby. Strange female." 

Sayron was still staring at the tower. A tower in the air, instead of underground, where he had stayed as long as he cared to remember. A tower rising up above the land, for everyone to see. "It´s beautiful," he whispered, his eyes staring back in times long past, when the land had been populated and the tower had stood straight. 

"Until the browns found you in Nordberg, we thought we´d lost you forever." Gnarl chuckled for a moment. "See? There´s no restraining true Evil. It´s in the blood! And here you are, back at the place where you were conceived!" 

The Overlord ripped his gaze away from the Tower. At that moment, he noticed a soft, pearly glow, at the extreme tip of the stone claw. He walked over and knelt, at the patch of soil where the glow was coming from. He brushed away the lifeless black sand. 

"…Unholy Lord," Gnarl whispered. 

A curved surface came to sight, gently emanating the first true light Jinx had seen here. Forms seemed to glide over the surface, disappearing before they were fully formed – eyes, peaks reaching upwards, a pearly dragon wing. 

"That´s a shard of the old Tower Heart." 

Sayron tapped it with his finger. The forms froze for a moment, but then resumed their movement faster than ever. 

"The Tower Heart collects magical energy and grows in power with its Overlord. With the old Overlord gone, the magical energy within it should have gradually dispelled… but it appears to have exploded for some reason! …So that´s what caused the Great Cataclysm… A burst of magic that powerful could indeed easily have wrecked the Tower…" 

Stripe wriggled a claw underneath the shard. It came loose out of the sand without trouble and could easily be picked up. 

"See if you can locate the other shards, Sire. Maybe there´s some magical energy left."  
>Sayron nodded, wordlessly. He allowed Stripe and Scabies to lift the shard and then turned, in the direction where they´d come from. "Come on, we´re taking it back to the gate." <p>

Their way back was free of danger. The blue slugs were still crawling through the valley, feeding on the bizarre growth, and didn´t seem inclined to come up and bother them. Soon the shard lay in the Tower Gate, and Gnarl reported it had safely descended into the Netherworld. 

Inside, Jinx begged the Overlord to follow the shard and leave this unnatural place far behind. Like Kniff, she was now shivering over her entire body. But Sayron turned away from the Tower Gate and stepped back into the Wasteland. 

This time, they descended the slope to the slug valley. Sayron stood still at the foot of the hill and glanced at the nearest puddle of blue ooze. "What is that stuff?" 

"Careful with that, Sire. It looks very powerful. Maybe it´s the cause of the extra eye those slugs have." The advisor paused. "But I do see an interesting phenomenon over there…" 

Jinx peered out in front of her. There, across the small valley and separated from them by a moat of ooze between two rock walls, was a rough wooden gate. 

A trace of civilization? Here? 

The Overlord stepped forward. Immediately, the slugs stopped feeding. 

"Careful you don´t fall into the ooze," Jinx warned. Then she drew her dagger and ran out, as a horde leader. 

The slugs weren´t much of a challenge. They tried to raise themselves, and they were big and heavy enough to squash Minions, but they were just a bit too slow. Soon enough, all invertebrates brave enough to attack were reduced to glowing puddles of blue slime in the black sand. Jinx eyed them warily. "Don´t touch it," she repeated. "Come on." 

She walked over to the ooze moat. Sayron caught up with them halfway, after wiping his sword on the mushrooms. 

Gnarl hummed. "Maybe the blue Minions can clear this away. They´re the most magical of us, maybe they´re resistant to the effects." 

"Remains their location," Sayron muttered. "They probably retreated to a moist place, but that could just be the open sea…" 

"Let´s hope they aren´t hiding out on the ocean floor, Sire. But it seems unlikely. They´ve always hoped for you to come back." 

"So we can´t go any further?" 

"Is a wheel over there," Parch remarked. "For opening the gate." 

Yelp nodded thoughtfully. "Can climb along rock face!" 

Blister slapped Parch´ shoulder. "You´re best climber, Parch. You lead the way." The red Minion´s broken leg had been healed by Mortis in the Netherworld, so he could help. 

Smoky also stepped forward. "With four, we can turn wheel, maybe back there is stuff for bridge like Master did on Everlight." 

Parch rubbed his white-hot hands together. "What we waiting for?" He walked over to the rock wall where the ooze started and pulled himself up. 

"Parch." 

The red half turned, one foot clawed into the rock. Jinx looked back. 

"Don´t fall." 

"Never fall," Parch grinned confidently. "You should know, Jinx." 

He clambered up with agility, and then climbed on to the side, not by stepping sideways but by climbing on with his head in front, a method showing his experience. The three others followed him, in the small master climber´s footholds for extra safety. 

Parch grinned. A while ago he hadn´t been allowed to fight in the horde. Now, he would have killed an enormous grass bear _and_ opened the way for the Master on the very same day! He couldn´t be happier… 

There was something strange with the rock. 

The red Minion scratched the black stone with his hands. It was hard, harder than the basalt above the lava flows in the Netherworld. And slippery. Slippery as ice… 

He made one more forwards movement. Then his feet also lost their grip. His tail flicked through the air, useless. 

"Parch!" he heard, as he fell to the ooze below. Then he smacked into it in a fountain of glowing, sticky drops. 

On the other side Sayron, the Minions and Jinx stood staring at him. Kniff seemed about to run to him, but was restrained by Minc. 

The red Minion looked down. His body was covered in blue splashes. "Is alright," he said. "Am okay." 

Above him, the three others lowered themselves. "Pull you out, Parch," Blister said, a concerned look on his face. 

That was fine, Parch thought. He was alright, so if they´d fall as well… what would be wrong with it? 

As Blister outstretched a hand, Parch gripped it without hesitation. 

And pulled. 

Both their names were called out as Blister fell on top of him into the ooze, so they both got smeared with blue liquid. Now Parch really started to feel strange. His inner fire seemed about to burst out, the base of his curved horns was tingling. 

Smoky and Yelp stared down, impulsively climbed towards them and also lost their footing. 

"Parch!" Jinx yelled from the other side. "_Parch!_" 

Kniff struggled in Minc´s grip. "What is that?" he yelled. 

Parch looked down again. His entire skin was tingling now. He seemed to change colour, become lighter. He felt his horns. They were stretching. 

"His eyes," Jinx moaned. "He has no pupils left, he has no damned pupils left!" She groaned with powerlessness. "Climb out, Parch! Please! You´ve taught me all I can! Climb out!" 

Parch stuck out his tongue. It seemed to be longer than before. He moved the tip in front of his own eyes. His tongue was blue. He looked behind him to the three others and nodded, satisfied. 

Blister, Smoky and Yelp were standing hunchbacked in the ooze, covered in blue splashes but clearly with a sickly pinkish skin, as if all red had been washed out. Their inner fire was the same colour as the ooze. Their eyes lacked pupils and were mismatched in size, and their tongues hung out uncontrolled. 

The now much larger red Minion snarled and pointed at the horde on the other side. Then he and the three others started moving, a swaggering, and irregular pace. 

Through the blue haze before his eyes, the Minion that had once been Parch saw the black-haired girl shaking her head, as tears trailed their way through the filth on her cheeks. She stepped back as he approached, but still he pounced. In his jump his claws swung out. As he hit her, they both slammed into the ground. 

"_Parch!_" 

His only answer was an irregular growl. Blue drool dripped on Jinx´ face as he reached for her throat. His claws pierced her skin and he tightened his grip as she started bleeding. 

A short, fleshy sound. His mismatched eyes acquired a faint expression of surprise. Through the blue haze he saw a jagged knife being pulled from his stomach. Light purple blood mingled with the flood of drool on her clothes and the tears on her face. There was no pain. He was beyond that. 

As Jinx threw him off her he remained there in the black sand, his long tongue lolling out as the blue light in the once glittering eyes faded. And in the gaping wound in his stomach, glowing very softly, was an orb of red life force.

As Jinx lay sobbing on the ground next to Parch´ hideously mutated body, the red life force within him faded. It spread out through the air for the briefest moment, then descended through minuscule pores in the ground, deeper and deeper. As deep as was possible. 

As it arrived in the humming, warm Netherworld air, it chose a specific direction. It floated over gorges, plateaus and hanging bridges to an organic, black object riddled with red-hot openings. It flowed into the red Hive through one of them. And there, in the scorching heat, the little, blazing grain of life started to transform. The red glow changed to orange, yellow and finally an all-consuming white. It changed form. Appendages appeared. Four of them split into four more, smaller appendages, another increased in length. Another still was raised upwards, to the faraway upper world, and opened two pinpricks of eyes, glittering and yellow. 

Then a red skin started to grow over the new red Minion´s inner fire. At the stomach, arms and back it was slightly thinner, so the glow shone through. The unborn Minion stretched his arms, clenched his tiny hands into fists and swung his tail. Then he started making weak swimming motions, taking him closer to the outside of the Hive.

The reds in the stalactites above the lava flow, the swimmers in it and the others hanging around at the Hive looked up as one of the openings in it lit up brighter than usual.  
>One beat of a tiny, fiercely glowing heart later, a young red Minion tumbled out of the opening he´d lit from the inside. He fell down, straight into the lava flow. As he hit the liquid fire, the little red already seemed to grow. And as he threw himself out and climbed up along the rock face he was of normal size for a newborn. <p>

The red Minion straightened out, dripping with lava. He opened his eyes. The others watched with interest – his eyes were elongated and sported a pitch-black lining. 

"What´s your name?" one of the others asked. 

The newborn looked at him. "Fever," he spoke with a sizzling voice full of fire. 

But the little red Minion smiled in such a way you just couldn´t imagine he was speaking the truth.

**So, the ooze in the Wasteland mutates. It turns Minions into whatever the heck it turned Parch into. How shall our Master get through? Will he rescue the Green Minion Hive? Review or take a dip in the ooze. Your choice.**


	11. Out of the Shadows

**Glad to have you all back, Overlord is not claimed by the author and I do not own this story. All credit and utmost respect goes to Sunjinjo who can be found on Deviantart.**

**Enjoy**

Out of the Shadows  
><span> 

A soft crunching. The feeling of cold leather against warm skin. Eyes screwed against the blinding white and constantly shaking off to prevent a pile of snow forming on top of your head. 

Exactly what she needed right now. 

Here, at an altitude of four thousand meters up in the Nordbergian mountains rising over the town, Jinx was alone with her thoughts. That was fine. She hoped this whiteness could drive out the dark within her. Darkness was great, but not the kind that had invaded her heart from the Wasteland. 

Her narrowed eyes stared through the whirling snow. She saw other things, however. 

Mortis, bent over the Well, reaching inside with a webbed hand. The lighting shades of Rasp, Nails, Raw and the others being dragged out, shining life force fusing with them, the Minions becoming solid again. She'd seen them die. Rasp and Nails back in Nordhaven, skewered on Kiret spears, Raw with an arrow through his head at the Reef Gates. Still, they were back. 

Parch wasn't. He'd never come back again. Blister, Smoky and Yelp weren't. Gonk and Ludz, two weaker browns on their very first travel, separated from the horde by an enormous slug on the way back to the Tower Gate and driven backwards into the ooze, they weren't either. Sayron had commanded them with burning eyes to kill the Minions first. But not even that had been nearly as hard as sticking her dagger into Parch and feeling it enter her friend's entrails. 

Jinx shook her head. The snow sprayed off her black hair. She didn't want to think of that anymore. 

Loss. She'd lost things before. 

Including great parts of her memory, so she couldn't even remember exactly what... 

Jinx stopped, her head down and her gloved hands clenched into fists. She'd been so unexpectedly happy in the Netherworld and with the Minions, once the death threats had subsided; she'd forgotten it didn't make any sense. Of course, if Sayron continued like this, it'd be wise to be on his side, but what good would it do her? She'd always be his slave...  
>She thought of disappearing. A part of her would be happy to escape into the upper world, maybe to a far corner north of the Empire, or undiscovered lands beyond the distant horizon. <p>

But another part of her knew that, even if she'd suddenly remember who she'd been and what she should be doing, she was now so attached to her life as the horde leader; she never wanted to leave again. 

She felt torn. That was why she'd gone out hunting alone – she didn't want to see anyone, not even Kelda. But then she'd consciously chosen the most difficult path up the mountain, away from the hunting routes. Up here was nothing. Just Nordberg's last snow. 

And a robust, hunched form, almost white on white... moving slighty. 

The grey eyes beneath the sealskin hood froze. She was back in the Everlightian jungle, a gigantic drooling grass bear looming over her... 

...until Parch came speeding to the rescue like a comet... 

"No!" Jinx snapped to herself. She looked back at the form behind the whirling snow. What could that be? 

She reached for her Everlightian vines beneath her coat. 

At the same moment the form came forward. And Jinx could see it was something far larger than she'd estimated, distorted by the falling snow and the distance. 

"Ankhwoo?"

Kniff miserably brushed aside the shards of a fallen demon horn, one of the sculptures along the throne room walls that'd been destroyed by the enormous net full of Nordbergian steel. He briefly snarled at a black rat running past, but couldn't bring himself to chasing it, at least not as enthusiastic as Grot. 

He watched the other Minion for a moment. Grot was a hopeless case on the battlefield, so he'd probably be a cleaner forever. However, he thought of his broom as the mightiest of swords, always chasing after the rats and beetles invading the Tower. 

Kniff lowered his ears again as he swept on. "Parch," he muttered. "Will miss you, buddy." 

A soft, swift clicking of claws on marble made him look up. Another Minion? Grot and him were quite enough, the net makers had been less violent than usual. 

It was a red. Small, and with a longer tail than the average. 

Kniff caught himself staring. His broom clattered from his hands. 

Then he saw the red's eyes. Elongated and with a black lining. 

"New?" he asked, still miserable, but despite everything still with a spark of his old curiosity. 

The red nodded. "Name is Fever," he spoke. Kniff's attention was drawn in some more upon hearing his voice – even more sizzling than Hoarse's. The newborn – he had to be, judging by his size – turned away and looked around the throne room. His eyes lingered on the mist pool, now showing Sayron in his struggles with the Everlightian jungle. Kniff followed the red as he went for the back of the hall. 

Gnarl looked up from the pool as Fever approached. He seemed to back away slightly as he saw the red's eyes. 

"Hello, Gnarl." 

The mist pool went black. 

A heartbeat later the throne room echoed with a desperate cry... 

"_Shiiiiiit!_"

Jinx sprinted down the mountain trail, tripping in the massive layer of snow and feverishly searching for a spot to where she could throw a rope. Behind her, the yeti sniffed up her scent with interest. It was an enormous beast, at least five meters tall and covered in light grey fur. One huge eye blinked while watching her run, and then fell to her white clothes. He suddenly bared a set of very sharp teeth, kicked his short hind legs, flung out his long arms and swung down by the underside of the ridge, coming up and thudding back on the trail in front of Jinx. Right at that moment she threw down her vine, so she soared past him. 

"What did you find, boy?" a loud voice pierced the frigid air. "Don´t just kill whatever you come across..." 

Jinx looked over her shoulder from her lower ridge, a hand above her eyes against the whiteness of the sky. The yeti had held still. Next to him was a green-clad figure with blond, braided hair and pointy ears. His green eyes were fixating her even more than the yeti's one yellow eye. 

"Florian Greenheart," Jinx hissed. 

The elf laid a hand on the yeti's rough fur. "So you've heard of me…" 

"Where are your Soldiers of the Sanctuary, treehugger?" Jinx mocked from her ridge. "Oh, wait, there _is_ no Sanctuary below Nordberg anymore..." 

Florian's eyes widened. 

Jinx clasped a hand to her mouth as she realized what she'd flapped out. Her connection to the Overlord did go a little deeper than she'd estimated, then. Now the elf knew for sure on whose side she was. She moaned. "Think of who's holding the yeti, girl," she growled to herself. Then she looked back up at the elf. 

Florian patted the yeti's massive arm. He opened his mouth to speak. The voice following, however, was not his. 

"Jinx, I believe the pool has decided you need my help a little harder than Sayron at the moment." 

Jinx jolted in surprise, slipped on the icy rock and plummeted into the ravine. 

"And I think it might be right," Gnarl remarked dryly. 

"After her, noble creature!" she heard Florian call out. The yeti roared and swung after her. 

She swiped out her ropes to both sides, felt them catch on and nearly snap with strain, and swung to a halt between two spires. As her heart hammered like crazy, she looked about her wildly. "Gnarl!" 

"Yes?" 

"I didn´t even think of you! It´s not my fault!" 

"Most certainly not. I suggest you get the hell away from that yeti. You´re wearing seal fur and he won´t stop until you´re dead." 

There was the clatter of falling rocks above as the gigantic creature came down with giant leaps. A greedy, snorting growl reached her hooded ears. She looked up fearfully, yanked her ropes free and let herself fall even further. 

It wasn´t easy using the ropes with gloves as thick as she was wearing now. Unlike during her first voyage through Nordberg, she was dressed for it now, down to her sturdy fur boots, but it did take away much of her agility. 

"_Ankhwoooooo!_" 

She smashed her feet into the rock face below her, which luckily wasn´t too steep at this point. She bent her knees upon impact and immediately started running as fast as she could, her jagged breath trailing behind her in large plumes of steam. She reached a good speed, racing downwards through the snow. 

She threw a glance over her shoulder. The yeti came thundering down the mountain on his knuckles, way faster than she was. Florian was nowhere to be seen. 

She might just as well use the fact she now had an advisor. "How do I get rid of him?" 

"Reach Nordberg! Once you´re out of the snow, he´ll turn back." 

"Faster, Jinxie!" Kniff´s voice sounded next to her ear. 

"I´m trying, Kniff!" 

Below her grew leafless trees which would only in the heart of summer get a chance to come to life. At the moment she slid between them a new voice sounded, one with a sizzling undertone. 

"Look to the right, Jinx." 

Involuntarily, she did as she was told. There, a few yards away, a large slab of bone-tough bark hung loose from one of the trees, strangely scorched as if it had been ripped loose by a sudden burst of flame. 

Something clicked and Jinx cast out a rope. She swung around the tree once, kicked the slab loose with outstretched feet and a crack, and jumped onto it as it slid into the snow. Then she bent over as if riding the floating rock. Her makeshift snowboard granted her a great deal more speed, and now she started to reclaim her lost head start from the yeti. 

She heavily breathed out in a trail of steam as the pounding of the heavy knuckles receded somewhat and the yeti was hidden from her eyes by the lifeless trees. Then her eyes narrowed. "Who was that?" 

"Fever, Jinx," Gnarl spoke. "A new red Minion." 

_Don´t think of Parch..._ "He´s got good eyesight if he could see that in the pool." 

"How did Jinxie get into the pool?" she heard Kniff ask. 

"Yeah, I´m curious to that as well." She looked back. The yeti was still tailing her. She bent over a little deeper. 

Gnarl coughed. "I believe the Netherworld feels you mustn´t die. It surprises me." 

"You don´t mean a word of it," Jinx grinned. She heard Kniff chuckle. 

...How could she even have thought about leaving the horde? 

"_Jinx! Look out!_" 

Her eyes widened and she straightened out abruptly. In a reflex and a spray of snow she crossed the bark. 

Before her feet, the world fell away. Deep, deep below her, smoke rose from the chimneys of Nordberg. 

She looked back, just in time to see the yeti thunder out between the trees. 

She jumped.

Gnarl rigidly clasped his hands together as he watched the vision in the pool grow hazy with speed, a grey smudge of mountain slope with Jinx sharply visible against it. Her hood was blown off and her black hair flew up. She still had the bark beneath her feet, but a fall from this height would at least do some damage... 

He looked away to the Minion who called himself Fever. He couldn´t believe it was already beginning. 

Three questions buzzed through his ancient skull. How was Sayron in the meantime? How would Jinx survive this? And where, _where_ were the two other heads of the black dragon?

When would they walk the mortal world? 

Kniff stood on his other side, his fingers in his mouth and his eyes wide. He nervously gnawed his knuckles as Jinx cast out a rope – and missed. A second throw made her swing to the side uncontrolled, a nauseating motion even for the watchers through the mist pool.  
>She put her snowboard against the rock face, slightly less steep at this point. The bark slowed her descent in a rain of splinters, but her knees were trembling and she wouldn´t be able to keep it up for long. <p>

Fever bent over the pool. "Howl! Howl for help!" 

Jinx´ head flew up. "What?" 

Kniff yanked his fingers out of his mouth and howled like a wolf. Jinx´ eyes lit up and she followed him, a mournful call through the screeching wind. 

Way down, something answered her call. But above her the yeti roared out his rage.

The icy wind bombarded her ears. She tried to reduce her speed as much as she could using her ropes and the bark, but even as she howled a second time, the wood ricocheted on a bump of rock and tumbled away from beneath her feet. Her left foot snapped against the rock and tears sprung into her eyes with the sudden pain. 

Below her was another plateau, free of snow this time. She had reached the border of the snow cap. But the yeti didn´t seem about to turn back, the elf´s command still ringing in his sunken ears. 

Jinx smacked onto the relatively smooth ground. She couldn´t run – her foot lay limp and at a strange angle. 

She howled again, hoarse with fear. The yeti thudded down behind her like a compact avalanche and raised a massive fist. 

Which was suddenly hung with a slender, grey-haired creature, teeth sunk into the fleshy wrist. 

Jinx pushed herself up on her hands, her eyes wide with joy. The wolves had come! 

The yeti turned a full circle and flung the wolf loose with a mighty swing, but there were already more of them, threatening him from all sides. They snapped at his hands, as one of them was always on the ground for balance, his feet and his behind. They jumped at his face so he backed away, growling low as he did so. A single, large wolf approached Jinx and sniffed her. 

She outstretched her hands to him. "I smell of Minion, don´t I?" She managed a quivery smile, deliberately not showing her teeth. This might just be the very same wolf she´d ridden during the Nordberg siege. 

She swung an arm around the strong shoulders and hauled herself onto his back in an old, but familiar position. She egged him on and he sped off, and she knew he was running as fast as he could. 

Behind them, the enraged roars of the yeti rose over the pack´s growls. Jinx looked back, just in time to see him bat away four wolves at once. He was coming after her again.  
>But the slope was much less steep here, and the wolf effortlessly jumped over the cracks and boulders that´d normally slowed her enough to cause her demise. <p>

Now she could even see the clock tower bell of Nordberg shine in the sunlight. They were approaching the city walls. 

High above her, invisible in the thick clouds keeping the mountaintop covered in snow, a high whistle like that of a tropical bird resounded. 

The yeti abruptly halted and looked up. The wolves caught up with him, but with one enormous leap he was out of their range and swinging back up the mountain. 

She could hear Kniff cheering. 

"That turned out well, Jinx," Gnarl remarked dryly. "I really was expecting you to be a rather sad smudge of blood within three minutes. But the only reason you´re still alive is that elf´s mercy." 

Her heart skipped a beat with incense. "That´s not true! I did everything I could to escape!" 

"Yes, but you won´t stop a yeti just with a pack of wolves. Now, come back through the Nordberg gate and let´s hope I can get the pool to work properly again..." 

Jinx started as two trees on either side of her suddenly caught flame. A hiss resounded, but she wasn´t sure if it came through the pool or from the flames. "Whoa! Do those tar pits stretch out to here?" 

"...Um, would you like to check the quarry before you go?" Gnarl then asked. 

Jinx raised an eyebrow at that change of subject. "The wolf won´t be pleased..." 

"Then heal yourself and walk! Come on now!" 

Even as the advisor spoke, the wolf slowed and came to a standstill on top of the rock face overseeing the quarry behind Nordberg. She shielded her eyes from the mushrooming clouds of debris and painfully dismounted. "Thanks, friend," she affectionately spoke to the wolf. "Pity our ways part so soon..." 

The wolf briefly snorted, rubbed his nose against her hand and ran back into the wilderness. 

Jinx turned back to the quarry. She carefully lowered herself from one of her ropes and came down with trembling knees. "Happy now?" she asked Gnarl as she walked between the labouring Nordbergians. "Everything´s fine here. Can I come back now?" 

"Wait just one moment," a sizzling voice spoke. 

"Fever?" she asked, confused and wondering why he was speaking in Gnarl´s stead. At the same time, she saw a ginger-haired man turning and staring at her. 

She knew who he was. "Kivner," she said, grinning. "Hi." 

But the expression in his wide, light brown eyes was not one of subservience towards an inhabitant of the Netherworld. It was one of disbelief, surprise... and unbelievable joy. A single tear ran over his cheek. His lips trembled and formed her name, without a sound. 

Jinx blinked. "...Kivner? What´s the matter with you?" 

"_Jinx?_" 

"Yeah. It´s not the first time you see me, you know." 

Kivner grasped her shoulders. "You don´t understand. Wait here and don´t leave." 

Then the ginger man suddenly fell down as if he were dead. At once, Jinx knelt down next to him and felt his pulse. It was beating normally. She raised her eyebrows, a strange feeling inside of her. "Gnarl..." 

"No idea," the advisor said, sounding as confused as she felt. "Going to get something on the other side?" 

For a while, Jinx stayed at Kivner´s side, trying to wake him up. Then, running footsteps sounded behind her. At the same moment the light brown eyes opened again. "Nessuna," the man whispered. "What have you done to me?" 

Jinx looked back. And spontaneously couldn´t breathe anymore. 

Right there was a woman in her forties, her hair short and black, her eyes a cool grey, resembling her own. She was truly beautiful and emanated a sort of constant slyness which wouldn´t look too bad on a green Minion, despite the expression that now lay on her face.

"Jinx," she whispered. 

"M-mom?" 

"Velvet?" Gnarl shouted.

"Velvet, daughter to Fengor the Red," the advisor spoke disbelievingly, not that much later.

"Sister to Rose, _your_ mother, Sire!" 

Sayron cast his flaming gaze over the two black-haired women. He´d returned from the jungle as soon as the mist pool was functioning normally again and Gnarl had passed him the message. Velvet was standing behind Jinx, holding her in her arms firmly. 

Jinx was staring at the large Overlord family tree hanging from the library wall in the private quarters. Quaver was just writing in her name. 

She was Sayron´s cousin. Sayron´s cousin! 

"How did you get to Nordberg?" Sayron asked urgently. 

"I came with governor Borius, thirteen years ago," Velvet spoke coolly. "I was his mistress until a certain powerful lady in the Empire really got enough of me and used him to send me to that frozen outback." 

"Who was that powerful lady?" 

"None other than my sister, Rose." 

Jinx froze as the memories came flooding back. _Rose..._ The wife of Marius, Speaker for the Emperor and brother to Borius, former governor of Nordberg. Only fitting that Velvet should try to suck up to him... 

She´d never known. 

"Arcadiopolis," Jinx whispered. "The Empire´s capital... That´s where I lived. That´s where we lived together." 

"Yes," Velvet said in a softer voice. "And I went out to claim a proper position in my sister´s domain, while she still wanted to see me dead. Until Borius was sent to Nordberg. As I boarded the galleon, she was standing next to the gangplank, and she told me she´d hung you in the slums that very same morning." 

"She didn´t do anything to me," Jinx muttered. "I received word you were in the Imperial dungeons to be tortured. I jumped to conclusions. I´ve been stealing on the streets for three years, after that I started to make a living for myself. Then soldiers came to arrest me, I was accused of being a witch and thrown into the Tamesa." There was no emotion to her voice as the memories kept flowing back, everything she´d been before she died in Mortis´ net. Her delirious dream at the Reef had been true – she´d gotten into the river through a witch trial, and Rose and Marius had been watching her from the shore. 

"But..." Sayron uttered, awakening from his own trance. "Rose..." He looked at the family tree, where Jinx´ name was still drying. "Rose, the Mistress of the old Tower... my mother... she´s in the Empire?" 

Velvet looked up at him with cool grey eyes. "And how. I believe you´ve already seen Marius? She´s his wife now, quite a step-down from Vessperion if you ask me. She serves Emperor Solarius." 

"How did she get there? Do you know why she left me in Nordberg?" Sayron´s voice grew rough. "And why did you never unveil yourself?" 

"I don´t know how my sweet sister arrived in the Empire, but I think she smelled power, as did I. She was already quite powerful when I was driven out of Angelis by the magical plague. Leaving you, well, everyone would have done that. The disease was still roaming freely and she had a baby with glowing orange eyes." 

"But you´re magical, too," Gnarl pressed with gleaming eyes. "You´re daughter to the mightiest wizard of the past five hundred years! I´ve heard you inherited most of Fengor´s power, not Rose." His eyes strayed off to Jinx. "And so..." 

"My father was Vessperion," Sayron interrupted. "Her power is nothing compared to mine!" 

"Who was her father?" Gnarl asked Velvet, his eyes narrowed to slits. 

The black-haired woman pursed her lips. "An officer, Junius Laurentius. An accident, really." She looked at Jinx, her eyes full of affection. "The most fortunate accident of my life." 

Gnarl turned back to Sayron. "She´s half magical. But she is your cousin, Sire." 

"And we must honour family," Kelda nodded in the Overlord´s stead. She´d been listening carefully. "And I believe we´d do well to grant lady Velvet protection from the Netherworld. The way she reformed Nordberg through the head of Kivner of Nordhaven deserves respect." 

"Just a bit of black magic," Velvet wafted it away. "That idiot could never have led Nordberg. And I was pleased to be living by day again. That´s the only reason I saw you, after all," she said to Jinx. 

"But Rose, my mother, serves the Emperor!" Sayron said roughly. He couldn´t seem to grasp it, which was natural. Kelda took his hand.

"Sayron... that woman who was here before you departed for the old Tower..." 

Gnarl yanked his head up to face Velvet. "I _thought_ I recognized her!" 

Jinx immediately knew it was true. That woman had been Rose. Disappearing in a blue flame, like Marius had done after the Nordberg siege. So the actual leader of the Empire´s Sentinels was her own aunt... things were becoming increasingly complicated. 

"There´s nothing we can do about that now," Gnarl spoke concisely, despite the worried gleam in his eyes. "I advise you to look for the green Hive, Sire. If I´ve learned anything from the progress of former Overlords, it´s the fact that strange doors can open once you have the clans together." 

"Then that´s what we´ll do," Sayron growled. He turned his red-hot gaze to Velvet. "You..."  
>Jinx held her breath. <p>

"...You´ll get a room in the lower levels," the Overlord finished. The glow in his eyes flared. "But I´m watching you." 

He turned away, strode to the portal, raised an arm and departed for Everlight. 

Velvet turned to Jinx with gleaming eyes, without paying any attention to Gnarl, Kelda or the present Minions. "Look at you, honey," she smiled. "Covered in blood and scars, I´m so proud of you..."

Sayron´s head spun as he emerged from the Tower Gate Grubby had dug for him, east of the grass bear territory. He whistled. Before long the four green Minions solidified from the undergrowth to join the gathering horde. 

Stripe had been looking about him for some time, to the foliage and the treetops. "Jinx scouting ahead?" he asked in his rasping voice. 

"No," Sayron answered shortly. "Jinx is staying behind." 

Hoarse felt someone tapping his armoured shoulder. Behind him was a small red with black-lined eyes. "Greet, leader," the newborn spoke shyly. His eyes were sparkling. 

Hoarse nodded to him. "Welcome into the horde." Inside, he wondered how such a little one could be strong enough to be allowed to fight. 

"Jinx´ mother in the Tower," Fever remarked. 

Several Minion spun around at those words. Kniff blinked, his ears twitching and his mouth gaping open. "What?" 

"Come on," Sayron said irritated with the lack of focus from his Minions.

The horde immediately followed, but the group of Minions was buzzing with excited muttering. Stripe and Kniff both looked worried. 

However, the greens were leading them as swift and difficult to follow as always, so they soon found they needed all their attention just to keep following. It was thanks to that attention that eventually, as dusk started setting in, they reached a narrow pass to an overgrown, rocky valley. The irregular walls rising at all sides caused it to be even darker than the area they were leaving behind, where the forest was relatively open. 

They did have a clear view of an abandoned elven fortress. 

There was the sound of marching feet, approaching from another direction. Sayron outstretched a hand and grabbed Rampus at the scruff of the neck as he was about to walk on. 

A small group of Empire soldiers marched across the stone bridge leading to the fortress. The two in front were carrying long spears, but the two behind them were dragging someone along. It was a struggling figure, dressed in a white toga with a purple stripe.  
>Sayron realized he recognized her – for the captive was a woman. The woman he´d seen through his telescope before the <em>Horizonbreaker<em> had been shipwrecked. Her long, chestnut brown hair now hung loose and her jewellery was gone, but she was still blindingly beautiful. 

"Such sights," Gnarl agreed. 

Kelda gnashed her teeth. "Don´t make me skin you and wear you as a hat, Gnarl," she growled. 

The soldiers dragged the woman inside the fortress walls. Then the massive gate started coming down. 

"Oh dear, where have we seen this before?" Gnarl said, casually as if he wasn´t standing next to Kelda at all. "I´d find another way in if I were you, Sire..."

**O.O Okay so how's that for a shock and then some. Velvet, sister to Rose, Sayron's mother is Jinxie's mother making Jinx our Master's cousin and Velvet his aunt…..**

**Well things are certainly getting more interesting aren't they?**

**Now the Master must find his Greens and perhaps assist fair maiden, well she's a bit more than fair.**

**(Kelda hits me with a club)**


	12. Deadly Hide and Seek

**Hello everyone I am back. Sorry for keeping this story away from you. Okay I do not own this story all respect and admiration is directed at Sunjinjo on deviantart thank you very much.**

**General Herbison: Well I must say I am enjoying this story**

**Kniff: Who you like better? Jinxie or the Master?**

**General: Oh that's tough, I have to say that my loyalty is to the Overlord but I quite like Jinx as well.**

**Kniff: What you think of Jinxie's mama?**

**General: I think she's dangerous, I met Velvet a long time ago. Back in the days of Heaven's Peak plague. Let's say that I do not want a repeat.**

**Velvet enters**

**Velvet: Is there a problem?**

**I run from the room.**

**Velvet: Okay then I guess I'll take over. Please enjoy this story.**

Deadly Hide and Seek  
><span> 

Red banners with golden suns, glistening faintly in the very last light. Wrecked statues of the Mother Goddess. The sound of voices from within the walls.

The great fortress was full of Empire and Sayron could feel his blood rushing through his veins. This was the place Jagged had spoken of – the place where the green Hive was being held, far from the place she should be standing. 

The leader of the green clan excitedly outstretched and retracted his claws. His pupils were diluted so his eyes were nearly black. His three companions were, at the moment, scouting ahead invisibly, but as Sayron searched the surroundings for a trace of glowing eyes Ramul solidified from thin air right in front of him. 

"Weak spot," he hissed. "Fallen pillar. Empire isn´t careful, we can enter." 

Sayron narrowed his eyes. "Show me." 

Ramul nodded and sped off, into the undergrowth. Sayron and the horde followed though a sea of purple pitcher plants, swaying and nearly overflowing with fluid as they brushed past. Sayron bent over and looked into one of them. The pitcher contained the drowned body of a gnome. So they had burrows around here too... 

The fortress was on their right now. It seemed as if Ramul was leading them past it, but eventually they arrived on the other side of it, still on the wrong side of the deep gorge with the swiftly running water far below. 

There was a bridge, however; like the green had said in the form of a fallen pillar. Some way to the right in the weathered wall a few bricks had crumbled down, and a hole had formed, big enough for a Minion to fit through. 

A soft hiss announced the return of Whisper and Scythe. At the same moment the Overlord´s eyes fell onto a strange piece of rock, some way off between the pitchers.  
>Gnarl chuckled. "It´s impossible for you to get across that pillar and the hole is way too small for your imposing figure to fit through," he spoke. "But you do know what kind of rock that is." <p>

Sayron stared at it. He thought back to a long while ago, in the sanctuary below Nordberg where he´d found the red Minions. There, close to the Netherworld, he´d seen pieces of rock like this one, pitch black and gleaming like the dark marble of the throne room itself. He stepped forward and the rock reacted like he´d expected: it rose up and unfolded four twisted claws, not that different from the Tower Gates themselves. 

The glowing orange eyes shot to the four green Minions. "I don´t know..." 

"You have to," Gnarl countered. "The Hive is in there and the green leader has already told you they didn´t get her out themselves." 

Jagged looked from the rock to Sayron. "What is that?" 

Stripe stepped towards him. He, as strongest of the brown clan, knew what this meant. He grabbed Jagged´s shoulder and told him. Jagged´s eyes grew even wider.

"Jinx, her name is like a curse  
>Though at her job she´s rather good<br>For where she goes there always flows  
>A stream of cowardly Empire blood!" <p>

Quaver chuckled. "I´d composed that for you in secret, milady... but I think I´m supposed to think up something more respectful now..." 

Jinx uncertainly followed him. "Really? I haven´t changed, you know." 

"But you´re related to our Lord! You´ve always been part of the Netherworld." The bard turned and studied her. "You´re going to need new garments. The Overlord´s cousin can´t show herself in ripped, scorched, bloodied clothing. And a proper weapon – that Nordbergian dagger´s out of the question..." 

Jinx felt strangely hollow inside. "Can we start with the weapon? I think I know something..."

In the meantime, in the lower levels of the Tower, in a stone cell with rusty bars, a ginger man in Nordbergian clothing clasped his hands to his head. Inside that head was a raging storm of confused thoughts. It had been a long time since Kivner had truly had his head to himself. 

Nessuna... Velvet. She´d been sharing his head as her own body lay in her house, on the long bench and surrounded by the black candles that always kept burning. She´d made off with his body. 

Now she was gone. And it seemed like the Overlord´s advisor had thought it to be wise, without Velvet to guide his actions for the better, to store Kivner away somewhere safe, just in case his regained own thoughts were about resistance... 

The grey servant was making a mistake, a horrible mistake. Kivner knew that, despite the fact he barely knew how to think for himself anymore. Velvet´s actions had had more influence than the great slaughter on the square itself, but now his face had disappeared from the stage, the Nordbergians might just stop forging weapons for the _Minions_.  
>Kivner, however, had noticed his weak cries for help were answered only by raspy laughter. The Nordbergian Minions had nodded to him with respect, but that status lay in the past now, like the one who´d helped him to it. Velvet had dropped Nordberg like a clean-eaten bone now she was being granted protection from this wondrous Netherworld. <p>

Maybe the Overlord would listen to him, but he was currently busy with something different altogether.

**(EVERLIGHT)**

The green clan leader was on top of the stone claw with one jump. Sayron commanded the rest of the horde to go to it as well, and as if it was agreed they started running around it, slashing the air with their weapons every couple of seconds like in a strange, ancient dance.

Then the Overlord himself raised a gauntleted hand and called for the magic. His hand started sizzling with blue energy. The amber gem lit up pure white. 

Sayron felt himself being pulled out. His field of vision grew wider, he saw the world through a yellowy haze, and then suddenly he was looking _down_ at the running horde... 

His arms were longer, his legs shorter. On his head was no helmet, but a pair of versatile ears. He licked over sharp teeth in an uncovered mouth. And then there was the spirit of the Minion. 

"I don´t envy you inside that smelly carcass, Sire," Gnarl remarked. "Breathe through your mouth... Now, I think you can put the intangibility of the green clan to good use in there..." 

_Trust you, Master,_ Jagged´s thoughts sounded above the advisor´s voice. 

_I gather you do,_ Sayron thought back, _but let me do the thinking. I did this before and Vessperion´s name, if you give me half the amount of trouble Stripe did back then I´ll make you wish you´d never been spawned._

_Certainly, Master._

Sayron tested his new claws. The long nails stretched and retracted effortlessly. He clenched his fists briefly. _Invisible._

His body faded and disappeared. He twisted his sharp-toothed mouth in a grin and jumped from the claw and onto the pillar with one move. The Minion´s legs were short, but very powerful. 

He looked back and let his body appear again. "Follow," he hissed with a voice that wasn´t his. Scythe, Whisper and Ramul obeyed their leader´s voice at once, but the browns and reds hesitated. Then Sayron´s gaze fell upon his own body, frozen with a raised hand, connected to the claw with a thread of pure magic. Vulnerable. 

"Ten of the strongest Minions stay with my body," he whispered, struggling to utter the unbroken sentences. "Stripe, Hoarse and the rest follow me." He knew he´d be needing the horde leaders within those walls – even if Stripe technically wasn´t a leader anymore. He spun round and slipped through the hole in the fortress wall. His Minions followed one after the other, as silently as they could. 

On the other side of the wall lay a small, unkempt field, closed off by weathered walls, overgrown with tropical foliage and lit only by fireflies in the darkening night. A small distance away was a flight of crumbled stairs leading up. He sprinted to it, claws involuntarily spread with excitement. He had to get used to the smaller body´s rapid heartbeat. 

At the top of the stairs he froze. He was looking at the back of a man in armour. He turned and gestured to the horde to stop. Then he spun round, jumped onto the soldier´s neck and silently slit his throat. He thudded to the tiles, but even that sound was muted by the moss covering the entire fortress. 

"Sire," Gnarl whispered. 

Sayron looked up. At once, Jagged bombarded him with thoughts. 

_Moved her! Path leads to elevator, planning to take her away! To where? Can´t be off Everlight, the clan will die...!_

_Easy!_ Sayron roared inside. He let his gaze travel over the new discovery. Right in front of him was the green Hive. It was a plant-like object, flattened and bulbous at the lower part and with some flowerlike growths at the top. 

"That was quite easy," the advisor sniggered, still in a low voice. "But now you have to get her out of here. The Hive´s too big for the hole though which you entered. But if I follow that path over there..." 

"Yes, yes," Sayron hissed. He let his eyes follow that which both Jagged and Gnarl had pointed him to. Just behind the Hive was a closed gate, but behind that was a curved balcony leading to an elevator platform able to descend to ground level. There were more closed gates along the way, but down there was the large gate leading back into the valley... and if he could get the Hive through there, he was done and the greens could come with him to the Netherworld. 

_Passage,_ Jagged whispered inside his head. Sayron groaned. He hated it to command his Minions this way. Still he looked in the direction Jagged was forcing his own eyes to. There was indeed a gloomy passage. He sprinted into it, followed by all the others. 

He didn´t see the growths of the Hive glowing faintly behind his back, nor the thin black threads emerging from them.

**(NETHERWORLD)**

Shotter ran off, tripping and limping, his hands clasped to his head. He had heard of Jinx, the black-haired she-devil leading his upper world clan members. But he´d never felt her infamous right fist. 

"That´s what you get for not listening to me," Jinx called after him. "I prefer to do this myself." She attached the second of the arcanium spikes Giblet had forged for her to her first vine. Arcanium was the very strongest metal the master forger knew of. It could only be won deep within the planet. It never rusted or bent, never got blunt and, when forged well, could inflict wounds to the bone. 

Giblet watched her work, an approving smirk on his sooty face. She still reacted like a Minion, not a mistress. He would teach his apprentice, Shotter, how to deal with his own clan leader later. 

"I was thinking of this for quite a while now," Jinx grinned. "I just never had the rights to use arcanium." 

"Rare," the blacksmith nodded. "Only the Master normally uses it. Minions keep to steel..." 

"...and lesser material," Jinx finished. "Is it true that pumpkin Spink wears on his head is from the Mellow Hills? I know Rampus´ sickle is, but..." 

Giblet nodded. "Was there when he found it." 

"And that land is now a puddle of blue slime," Jinx muttered, her eyes on the spikes she was now fastening to her second vine. 

Giblet remained silent for a moment. "Wasteland still contains treasure," he then spoke. "Tower... castle of Spree... dwarven lands full of gold..." 

"Maybe even Angelis, my mother´s city," Jinx smiled as she pulled at a loose piece of aerial root. She looked up. "You´ve seen the blue Minions. Are they capable of rendering the slime harmless?" 

"Blues have many talents besides resurrecting like Mortis." Giblet tapped his hammer to his armoured knee. "Have seen them make ghosts of dead elves fade away. Have seen them kill wisps." 

"Wisps? Those fireflies?" Jinx faintly remembered a night in a swamp – a memory that had just returned to her. Her mother had been there. They had seen the wisps dance, and Velvet had told her those innocent little lights had a habit of luring people towards them, deprive them of their hearing by entering their heads through the eardrums and of their vision by exiting through the eyes. The most victims were lost to the swamp forever, where their bodies were absorbed by the gathering lights. 

Her mother didn´t believe in fairytales. Jinx had learned not to very early. 

"...Well, that slime is just a small step up from wisps," she smiled.

**(EVERLIGHT)**

Fireflies danced in the darkness ahead as Sayron and the other Minions emerged from the narrow passage. They were looking out over a courtyard, crossed with some thin boards at their height that had probably once formed the foundations of an upper story. The boards were about as broad as those in the Netherworld at the barracks, so they didn´t cause the Minions any trouble as they sprinted over them quick as rats. 

Below them lay dark, wild gardens. Thorny palm trees shot up between the tall ferns. 

"You and the greens can hide in there, Sire," Gnarl whispered. "They like a bit of shrubbery." 

A heavy footstep and an electric sizzling. Sayron looked up, just at the moment a true spectacle came stepping around a crumbling corner. 

It was gigantic and broad, covered in copper armour, the face hidden behind a metal grid. A gauntleted hand gripped an enormous instrument resembling a cannon, but in its barrel crackled pure blue energy not so different from that of the Netherworld itself. Still, this was no magic – not the kind Sayron knew. He briefly shivered at the thought there was an actual human being in there. 

"I don´t like the look of that fellow," Gnarl hissed. "Stay out of his sight and away from the thing he´s holding!" 

"Did think so," Sayron hissed back, despite himself startled at hearing Jagged´s voice instead of his own again. He snarled with irritation – which didn´t make things any better. He scrambled back into the fortress on the other side of the board. To his left, a stairs arched down through the firefly-speckled darkness. That had to lead to the gardens they´d just crossed. 

He looked back at the horde. Some Minions were whispering among themselves. "Keep silent, you. We´re going in." 

"Careful, Sire..." Gnarl whispered before quietly stepping back from the mist pool. He kept watching from a safe distance.

**(NETHERWORLD)**

As Jinx returned to the Tower with the floating rock, not that much later, Quaver was already waiting for her. He nodded approvingly at the new weapons she´d made out of her ropes.

"I can live with that," the bard spoke with the eye of an expert. "I can sing about that. Now, for the armour." 

Jinx looked down at her clothes. Her shirt did function like clothing, but that was all one could say about it. It hung around her body in smudgy rags, and her pants weren´t any better after her Everlightian days. Her hand, however, immediately shot to the red cloth around her head. No one was to touch that. Quaver bared his sharp Minion teeth in a grin.

"Come on. You have permission to enter the Overlord´s wardrobe now."

After a rather tiring climb, Jinx was looking out over a room just below the private quarters, where old armoury, robes and gauntlets lay stored – material saved by the Minions during the Exodus from the old tower. She slowly walked between them and watched how the light of the torches slid over the gleaming metal and the dark, flowing fabrics. It was quiet, but she could almost hear the ring of long past, legendary battles. This room breathed an atmosphere of great deeds, be it dark ones. She stopped to inspect a helmet in the shape of a dragon´s head. Her hand floated above the glistening metal and she wondered which Overlord had once worn it, and which lands he had conquered. She brushed some dust away from the back. _Vergal_, it read in elegant lettering. 

Quaver stayed right next to her. "Here lies armour able to stop the breath of a king dragon," he informed her. "The Master prefers material forged especially for him..." 

"...but I´m not that high in ranking," Jinx grinned. "I understand. I´m honoured just being here." She bent over a gleaming breast plate and clicked it with a short-bitten nail. "...But I have to decline the offer, I´m afraid." She bit her lip and retracted her hand. "These pieces won´t work. They´re far too heavy in the air, and they aren´t very concealing either. They reflect too much." 

Quaver remained silent for a moment, as if he couldn´t grasp her refusing this possibility. Then he looked up, his eyes two lighting orbs in a darkened face. "Then, Minion Mistress, I think we´ll have to be in a lower level of this Tower." He turned, but looked over his shoulder a moment later. "You do know what you want, I have to say... also know Vessperion would maybe be still here with us if he´d had better equipment," he said regretfully.

Much lower in the Tower the stone walls echoed with the ring of weaponry and the yelling of excited, raspy voices. Jinx and Quaver hurried along the walls of a room full of Minions jumping around, hacking, stabbing, biting and growling while polishing their battle skills. They were all wearing the new Nordbergian equipment from the mines. Some of the more experienced browns found the time to salute their horde leader, and Quaver had to pull Jinx along to prevent her from staying around to watch and check her fellow combatants´ progress. 

"But I have to know who to allow into the upperworld horde," she protested. 

"We don´t have the time now," Quaver countered. The bells on his hat tingled softly in the gloom as they descended a flight of roughly carved stairs, away from the fighters. "We´re down here for a different reason." 

At the bottom of the stairs, a sight similar to the Overlord´s ´wardrobe´ unfolded, be it far messier and less quiet. Here, it was teeming with Minions snatching bits and pieces of armour from shelves while barely looking at what they were picking out, putting them on, hacking to the air and each other with jagged weapons and running off or flinging their equipment to the floor and searching for new parts. Quaver led her through it, stepping around cautiously to not be run through with something. 

"Have a look around, if you can," he said with a nervous glance around. "I hope you´ll find something that fits you here." 

Jinx randomly outstretched a hand and grasped a chainmail. She looked at it and then flung it away over the shelves. Too heavy, too new. A breast plate of gleaming steel scales followed. A shoulder piece, already covered in blood, but too small for her. A set of knee protectors that had miraculously stayed together, equipped with spikes. If she would land on a tree branch wearing those, she´d never come loose again. 

A small claw on her shoulder. She looked around, her hands already outstretched to the next failure. 

A Minion wearing a chainmail like the one she´d first thrown away was looking at her with curiosity, a large flail in his hand. "Meph," he introduced himself with a nod. "What you looking for, leader?" 

"Proper armour," she sighed. "Hadn´t thought it´d be this difficult. You just put on whatever you find and I´d be able to as well, but now I´m able to choose..." 

"You fly?" Meph asked with his eyes on the ropes she was wearing around her shoulders even now. 

She nodded, a sideways glance to Quaver. The bard shrugged lightly. 

"Come along," Meph spoke resolutely, his claw around her arm as if Kniff was showing her around the private quarters on her very first day again. "Look here," he said with a gesture of his arm as they arrived at the back of the room. There were less Minions here, but Jinx´ eyes started gleaming as she saw what was waiting for her here.

**(EVERLIGHT)**

The sound of crickets was almost deafening in the cooling tropical air of Everlight. It made the soft rustling in the wild gardens of the southwestern part of the fortress inaudible – at least to ears covered with the copper helmet of an Eradicator. 

Sayron knew what this was. Eradicators were very efficient destroyers of magic. They were able to suck magical creatures into their weapons, after which the magic would be stored in the tanks on their backs. The creatures themselves were shred to pieces in the weapon, most likely the cause of the dark blood on the barrel of the weapon belonging to the Eradicator they were now looking at. The colossal Empire-born was cautiously stepping around the garden, a collection of tall trees and rough grass, most likely searching for wild gnomes raiding the fortress. Sayron had seen their burrows, but not one of them seemed to be inhabited. 

One by one the Minions had made the cross to the gardens, aided by invisible greens. Now they were all waiting for the Eradicator to turn his back so they could sprint on, to the low stairs and the inviting gates visible there. Those gates would hopefully lead to a central part of the fortress from where they could open the way for the Hive. 

The Eradicator, however, kept his eyes on the gardens, as if he could see the Minions within and was challenging them to come out for him to suck them in. Sayron softly grinded his teeth. He was certainly looking for gnomes in the shrubbery. But it was a matter of time before he´d see the glowing yellow eyes of the Minions. 

He turned to Whisper. "We´re going in." 

Whisper nodded briefly and faded. Sayron did the same, followed by the other two greens. He noticed he, now a green himself, might not be able to see his clan members, but he did know very accurately where they were and what they were doing. It took him some time to figure out it was the smell. He could just sniff out his clan members. The smell was more than just terrible. 

_Jagged,_ he thought. _Lead me._

_Yes, Master,_ was the answer. 

Invisible, they crept around the Eradicator. Sayron kept looking up through yellow eyes for a second, then he reluctantly gave over the control to the one in whose body he was lifting along. 

Jagged immediately launched himself to the enormous man´s neck and clawed himself in place. The Eradicator immediately raised his weapon and activated it. With a deafening, spouting sound, blue bolts of energy shot out, scorching holes in the undergrowth. Sayron heard the Minions scuttle away and he knew the Eradicator had heard them too.  
>Whisper, Scythe and Ramul joined him and together they clawed the helmet off. Just before they could get their claws under his throat, however, the Eradicator yelled. It was a gurgling through his own blood, but it had all the power of his mighty vocal cords. <p>

"Alarrrm...!" 

To emphasize it, there was the loud, clattering clash of the large body hitting the stone bottom. The four greens stood around it with hanging claws, their ears raised high and their eyes wide, alert for eventual reinforcements. 

Then Ramul turned an ear. "Lord," he hissed. "Gnomes." 

Sayron raised his ears higher. Now he too could hear the soft, but unmistakable chittering. What were they doing here if they knew they´d be wiped out? 

He hesitated, but then sprinted for the sound. Maybe... 

The short grass between the temple stones parted to grant him free sight to a wooden cage, built into the wall. A low barred gate closed it. Behind the bars, dozens of gnomes were scuttling about. 

At the same moment a second Eradicator thundered down the stairs they wanted to ascend. 

Sayron spun round and looked at his clan members. "Open the cage," he hissed. Then he started clawing through the wooden bars. 

Invisible as they were, the frenzied, ever overconfident gnomes shot past them and immediately towards the Eradicator the second they were free. The large man swore and turned towards them. "How did you get free? Is this the reason Balbus called me out?" 

Sayron silently thanked the Mother Goddess for putting creatures this stupid in the world – both the gnomes and the Eradicator – and hurried back to the horde. "He´s distracted, come on..." 

Along the walls, always in the shadows, the brown and red Minions crept out of the gardens. The reds held their claws in front of their chests protectively, not letting their glow give them away. They silently ran past the spinning, spouting Eradicator to the gates at the top of the stairs – 

"...I sssee you..." 

It was a whisper, but every Minion heard it and so did the Eradicator. 

A light fell on the horde, red as the fires of the Abyss. Sayron shielded Jagged´s eyes and looked up. On the fortress wall stood a figure in a long, dark blue cloak, a hood obscuring his face so not even his eyes were visible. In his hand he held a carved staff, but it was his other, raised hand with which he was spreading the red glow. 

For the briefest moment it was a frozen situation, the visible horde even more visible in the light, the Eradicator turned to them, his weapon dripping with gnome blood, and the Sentinel on the wall with his hand outstretched. 

Then the first Minion screamed as the light burned itself through his skin. 

As if it´d been arranged the Eradicator ran for them. Blue bolts flashed over the courtyard and Sayron watched powerlessly as two browns disappeared into the weapon. The Eradicator straightened out. "Reinforcements! The Overlord is inside!" 

Sayron groaned heartfelt as he heard heavy running footsteps come closer. A moment later another Eradicator shot around the corner. "No!" he shouted. 

"There´s something else!" One of the giants in copper turned to the greens. Sayron widened his eyes. 

"We have to leave them," he realized. There was no way the rest of the horde would be able to get out of this. The greens wouldn´t be able to take the Eradicators down if they were watching each other's backs. The four precious survivors would be sucked in before they could even swing out their claws. 

"Go back!" Sayron could just yell. Then he rolled out of the way, his tail swishing, as a blue bolt cracked the temple floor where he´d been standing. 

The greens invisibly hurried through the gate and left the blindingly blue chaos in the gardens behind.

The blinding light made that Kniff could barely see a thing in the dark gardens. He tried to run, away from the Eradicators, away from that hideous red light that felt like liquid fire playing over his leathery skin. He tried to hide in the ferns, but smacked into a thin tree. He shut his eyes tightly and waited for his head to stop spinning, as the flashes continued behind his eyelids. The spouting sound of the Eradicators merged with the buzz of the energy of the Sentinel on the walls. The screaming of his clan members went on and on. 

Where was the Master? 

Some other Minions spurted into the bushes, panting with strain, but there was already an Eradicator behind them. Kniff scrambled backwards, but his back hit a fallen pillar. He tried to stand up, but the Eradicator already raised his weapon. 

Then there suddenly was the ring of metal to metal above the din, resounding like a copper bell. Kniff´s attacker staggered. 

On top of his head was Stripe, his own helmet raised high above the Eradicator´s. "Master is safe!" the former brown leader yelled. "Go! Run!" 

A blue flash, yellowy claws pulling deep scratches on the Eradicator´s copper shoulders as the large Minion was dragged backwards, a whirring sound and clear blood splashing up... 

"Thank you, Hadrien," the Eradicator chuckled. His companion stepped into sight from behind his back, Stripe´s blood in large blotches on his weapon. 

Kniff uttered a choked sound. Then he spun around and ran away uncontrolled, his remaining horde members behind him in the direction they´d come from. The last thing he heard was the whispering laughter of the Sentinel on the wall.

Sayron and the greens crept through a broad, darkened passage, a hollow feeling in their stomachs. Sayron had no idea if his horde would survive. There was always the Well, of course, but it took life force to bring dead Minions back, so indirectly the lives of other Minions. Mortis couldn´t bring them back from nothing. 

"Sire," Gnarl whispered, a slight tremor in his voice. "Mistress Kelda is yelling at me, though she stays out of the pool´s range." 

"I´ll manage," Sayron hissed back. "I´ll manage." 

"I wasn´t able to follow everything back there due to the chaos, but I believe that if you turn right here, you´ll end up back at the Hive – on the other side of the closed gate. Straight ahead seems to me to be the direction those Eradicators came from." 

"Good," the Overlord whispered, glad his advisor didn´t make any comments to the status of his horde. 

The passage led up, and indeed, not that much later they shot out of a small gate, back on the balcony curving around the deserted central courtyard. 

On their right was the gate. But there was a small wheel now, on their side. Four spokes where waiting for them. 

The four greens each gripped a spoke and pushed. Slowly the gate creaked open. The green Hive came into sight again, still unguarded. 

There was something happening to it, however. From each of the flowerlike growths at the top hung black threads, each ending in a swollen, gleaming cocoon. 

They were moving. 

As Sayron watched, three ivory claws appeared between the silky threads of the first cocoon. They zipped their way down, after which a sharp-toothed little green head wrung its way out. The narrow eyes blinked open. A hiss escaped as the young green Minion opened his mouth. 

The other four cocoons went through the same process. Sayron looked on with growing understanding. He, as an Overlord, was carrying the green life force they´d come across in the jungle with him in the amber gem. Now he had passed here, the Hive had been seeded and green Minions were being born again. 

There was hope for the green clan again, even though the Hive hadn´t been saved yet.  
>Inside of him, the Overlord could feel Jagged bouncing around in joy. The other three became visible, so he could see their wide eyes and broad grins. <p>

The five newborns fell to the floor, but they jumped up immediately, their claws bared and clearly more than ready for battle. 

"Shadow…" "Vanish…" "Jeeper…" "Prowl…" "Aphid," it resounded in a hiss. 

"Welcome," Sayron allowed Jagged to say. "Make the Master proud!" 

As the nine of them put their shoulders under the Hive Sayron took over the mouth of his host again. "Gnarl," he spoke, "whatever you do, whatever happens next, don´t alert Jinx. This is a matter for greens…" 

"Certainly, Sire…"

"Where is Jinx?" it sounded through a deserted corridor, far from the gardens where such a large part of the horde had fallen. 

Scabies, the Minion with the piraty bandana around his head and an unusually bare shoulder without his loud parrot, spread his arms. "Stripe is dead. Master went on. Need a leader." 

"You?" mocked Aches. The carrier of the black-plumed helmet snorted in contempt. "Can´t replace Stripe." 

"Jinx," Kniff corrected silently. He shrunk as the far larger Aches turned to him. 

"Quiet, shrimp," the elder Minion snarled. Kniff nodded quickly. He knew Aches didn´t like younger Minions, and so, technically, he didn´t like Jinx either. He never accepted her as the horde leader. 

"Need everyone," Gloob interfered with a poisonous glance at Aches. "Maybe been better if you´d been… eradicated." 

Kniff pushed himself a little bit further into his corner as the discussion between Scabies, Aches and Gloob escalated and the three eventually unsheathed their weapons. The Minions were more flammable than usual. Understandable, stuck as they were in an unknown fortress full of the most dangerous weapons the Empire could offer and without a Master or leaders. Hoarse and Chimney, the second most powerful red, had fallen to the Eradicators as well. 

He shivered as Gloob threw himself onto Aches, snarling like an animal. Where was Jinx?

**(NETHERWORLD)**

Velvet of Angelis, now the black-haired noblewoman of the Netherworld, smiled faintly as she looked down at her bed with the three large metal spikes at the foot and the horned skull of hammered steel hanging above the head. After she´d gotten that bed from her father, Fengor the Red, she´d always hoped it would one day be standing in a place like this… even though she didn´t have anyone to share it with except for her daughter.  
>Barely audible footsteps sounded over the black marble of the lower level. Velvet turned with a rushing cloak. <p>

In the entrance to her quarters, Jinx was standing. Velvet smiled broadly and brought her hands together as she saw her. "That´s a look to be proud of!" 

Jinx smiled and plucked at her new clothes. It was still unfamiliar, but even now she could feel how her new leather breastplate became suppler, and the same went for the sturdy boots and knee protectors. The caps protecting her legs, the arm pieces on her upper arms, the shoulder pieces and the light plate protecting her stomach, they were all made of Nordbergian leather. Her armour was made of bits and pieces, all made for Minions, but as a whole they fit her surprisingly well. And in combination with the red cloth and the sash she´d kept it already felt like an outfit with which she could storm into battle without any trouble at all. 

More importantly, as she´d used leather instead of steel she could climb effortlessly. 

"I don´t even recognize you, lady," Velvet said, shaking her head but with a smile. "You´ve grown." 

"I´m a Minion," Jinx said quietly. 

Velvet´s eyes sparked. "No. You´ve become their leader. In earnest, if it comes down to it, do they obey you or Sayron?" 

"Sayron, of course," Jinx immediately answered. "As do I, by the way." 

"But on Everlight you led them by yourself, something I can´t be proud enough of," her mother spoke with a sly expression. "And it seems you did better than Sayron there…" 

Jinx hesitated. Then her face suddenly relaxed, as if she let her role of horde leader down for a moment. "It´s true," she admitted. 

"You really do love them, don´t you…" 

"I´d want to lead them myself so badly," Jinx mumbled, her head low in a way she´d call weak herself, but which she dared to show in front of her own mother. Velvet stepped towards her and wrapped her arms around her daughter. 

"Sometimes I have the feeling I know them better than he does," Jinx went on. "That I look at them better." 

"Well, you look at them from their own height," Velvet joked. "But that one Minion with the hat you spoke of, he seems to obey you more than Sayron." 

"Kniff?" Jinx smiled involuntarily. "He´s more of a friend than a subordinate horde member. We saved each other´s lives a couple of times now." 

"You told me that as well. Watch out, will you." 

"The world is cruel, that´s why we are as well," Jinx countered. "But I would never want him to obey me. I want to be one of them, not their leader." 

Velvet broke the embrace and stepped away. "But you´re long past that," she said. "You´re a horde leader. And didn´t you just say you would want to lead them yourself?" 

"In a way, yes," Jinx answered. She raised her head. "I envy Sayron, sometimes." 

"Everyone does, I suspect," Velvet chuckled. "But you know, it could be you resemble him more than you think. You´re gifted with magic, as am I. As was your grandfather." 

"Fengor the Red?" Jinx blinked. "Would I be able to use active magic thanks to him?" 

Velvet nodded. "It depends on how much attention you give it, but I strongly believe you´d succeed eventually… Then you´d certainly be more than just a horde leader." 

**(EVERLIGHT)**

Gloob threw Aches against the temple wall, where he was immediately jumped by Scabies.

However, Gloob, normally the pirate´s friend, clawed himself between the two and lifted them at the scruff of their necks. It took him some effort, but he held them both. He was the strongest after Stripe, after all. 

"You stop fooling," he growled. "Aches doesn´t care about horde, Scabies is reckless. I´m leader until Master returns." 

Kniff immediately stepped towards him and bowed his head, however without lowering his ears or taking off his hat. The other Minions did the same, be it with different amounts of hesitation. They had someone to follow again. 

Gloob straightened out and licked the blood off a cut on his arm. "We search for a way back to the Master´s body."

A new, descending corridor, opened on one side with ancient pillars for support. The view of the valley was dark, but clearly visible through a Minion´s eyes. 

The nine greens shot through the fortress, swift as shadows, away from the Hive and on the lookout for a new passage from which they could open the second gate. All of them were invisible. The newborns were naturals with that. 

Sayron had the idea they were getting close to another courtyard. Some heartbeats later he perked Jagged´s ears. Through the crumbling wall, he could hear voices. 

"Well, that´s her out of the way!" spoke a woman´s voice with an unmistakable Empire accent. 

A similar voice answered. "Cheap hussy! Trying to come between us and our hubbies!" 

"I´m going to get myself an elf lover… they really know how to appreciate a larger lady." 

"I know, have you seen the size of their priestesses?" 

The conversation was muted and not very close, but thanks to the infallible Minion hearing Sayron was able to follow it effortlessly. Also, he had his attention with it. He didn´t know why, but this interested him. 

He didn´t allow himself to get caught up, however, and sprinted out in front of his small horde through the passage, on his way to what turned out to be a balcony, looking out over a new courtyard. 

There he abruptly halted. He was looking down on the back of a Sentinel, dark-cloaked and with a carved staff in his hand like he´d come flying off the walls to taunt him with his presence again. Sayron knew this had to be another Sentinel, but they resembled each other so much it was scary – in the same way as the Eradicators. The Empire seemed to be promoting a cloning campaign. 

Also present in the courtyard was a circle of clearly high-ranking Empire citizens. They were all wearing expensive clothes and large jewellery. There was, however, one who didn´t, and he was standing right next to the Sentinel – a centurion, just clad in the usual red cloak and gold-coloured breastplate. 

"Right, bring in the gnome," he called out. To himself, just audible to the Minions cautiously creeping closer, he muttered: "Gnomes – hardly any magic and too weak for the Arena. Waste of an Eradicator, if you ask me." 

A couple of glowing gnomes bounced into the courtyard, followed by a stomping Eradicator sucking them in without hesitation. A single magical creature escaped, however, unnoticed by the crowd and the Eradicator, and hid beneath a fern sprouting from the stones some distance away. 

"Right, what´s next?" 

A new appearance stumbled into the yard, as if she´d been shoved forward. 

Sayron´s heart missed a beat. 

She halted in front of the Sentinel. She was still wearing the white toga with the purple stripe, even though it was ragged and smudgy now. Her hair hung down in long chestnut strands, but her dark eyes were still shining impudently. It was the woman from the beach.  
>Beneath his fern, the gnome caught sight of a – in his opinion – better hiding spot. He fled to under her skirt unseen and chuckled confidently. <p>

"This is ridiculous," the woman spat. "I don´t have any magical powers." 

In the crowd, another stepped forward, an elderly, plump grey-haired woman wearing the most valuable jewels of all. "Well, these upstanding Empire citizens say that you do!" 

"Yes, she bewitched my husband, governess Cardea," another woman snapped, a younger one this time but at least as fat as the governess. Most people from the Empire were like this, Sayron saw that once and for all, proven here. The woman being judged was the first beauty hailing from those parts he saw. 

"They weren´t bewitched, they were just bored," was the countering argument. "I can´t help it if rich and powerful men are attracted to me…" 

He could hear Gnarl chuckling softly, very different from the dark sound usually coming from his mouth. He realized his advisor also liked what he was seeing. 

"She´s a witch! She must be!" 

"Silence!" the centurion roared. "There is only one way to judge this." He nodded to the Sentinel next to him. 

The cloaked figure raised his hooded head and stuck up a hand. A red light slid over the woman. 

Hidden under her skirt and outside everyone´s knowledge, the gnome squeaked pitifully as the liquid fire ate him away. He sunk, unable to run or defend himself. The Sentinel looked up and nodded to the centurion, certain of the magic he´d seen. 

"Ha!" the accuser shouted. "I knew it! Eradicate her, this instant!" 

"Wait," the centurion spoke. "Since this is such an unusual specimen, I´d like to examine her carefully before she is cleansed." He smiled, more than happy with himself. He knew no one would deny him this. 

Two soldiers marched into the courtyard and grabbed the woman´s arms. She struggled, in a way betraying her exhaustion. She´d been doing this for far too long. "That Sentinel… he´s wrong. I don´t have any magic! Let me go! Unhand me, you plebians!" 

Sayron stretched his scaly neck to follow her as she was dragged away. He started as Gnarl whispered in his ear. "Remember Sire, Hive first, wench later!" He chuckled demonically, but abruptly stopped with a sound like all the air was smacked out of his lungs. A cracking sound, and then Kelda suddenly spoke. 

"What Gnarl meant to say is: focus on the task in hand!" 

"O-of course, if you happen upon this prisoner of the Empire, then I´m sure she would be most useful in… passing on any essential insider information," the advisor moaned. 

"Hmmmm…" 

Sayron didn´t know whether he should be chuckling or not, but that dilemma was solved as the Sentinel below them raised his head in their direction and started opening and closing his left hand. The Overlord backed away from the edge and sped off, around the courtyard, using the powerful jumping abilities of the green Minion as the floor became rickety and started to show holes. Eventually the balcony ceased to exist altogether, but their way still led them upward over an earth wall, piled up right through the fortress over several decades. The horde scrambled up along the rising wall, as the voices in the courtyard grew dim. A once again intact ceiling blocked out the stars and cloaked them in safe darkness.  
>That was suddenly broken by a sparkling blue light. A familiar crackling reached Sayron´s perked ears. <p>

There, through a crumbling hole in the wall, he could see an Eradicator, his back turned on them and his weapon out in front of him. 

The Overlord materialized briefly and gestured to the giant in copper armour. The eight others all showed their eyes in answer. 

Whisper was the first to jump forward, but they all followed, including Sayron himself. Before the Eradicator knew what hit him he was hung with invisible enemies, and before he could scream two pairs of claws were stuck in his windpipe. He fell, but there were the seven others, quick as lightning to break his fall with united forces. A dry click was the only sound as the copper armour touched the stones. 

Now Sayron could see the reason the Eradicator had been put here. They´d ascended to the curved balcony where the Hive was. There was a wheel again, and after they´d turned it, a new wooden gate opened to reveal the source of life of the green clan. There were already new black threads sprouting from it. 

The Overlord, however, didn´t give the command to lift it. Some way ahead of them a blood red light was playing over their path. He narrowed Jagged´s sensitive eyes and saw a Sentinel on the wall, turning his hooded head as if searching for something, without doubt on the lookout for glowing eyes. 

"Those Sentinels are able to track magic, Sire," whispered Gnarl. "And if I have to judge by what I´ve seen here, that red light has the potential to wound magical creatures, a bit like that myth about iron." 

Sayron nodded. He knew the fact magicals couldn´t touch iron was nonsense, otherwise his own Minions would not even be able to use iron weapons and armour, but he could very well understand the light would burn him for being a magic user – and it could also betray him to the Sentinel. 

"If we sneak up behind him…" he rasped in Jagged´s voice. "Would he feel us?" 

"As long as you stay out of the light, probably not," his advisor answered. "It´s worth the gamble, Lord… but not with the body you´re in now!"

**(NETHERWORLD)**

"_Ask entrance to the magic room. It´s never a bad idea to get to know new spells, especially for a beginner._" 

With her mother´s words in the back of her head, Jinx stepped into the throne room, very consciously more upright than before, with the slight feeling her new leather armour forced her to walk more proudly. Next to the throne, she saw Kelda look up and exchange a glance with Gnarl. Then she looked back at her and smiled weakly. 

Jinx walked over to the throne. "Everything alright in the upper world?" 

"Not a hair out of place," Gnarl answered, though his eyes were fixed on the mist pool. Jinx followed his steely gaze. It was strange to see Sayron´s imposing figure replaced by just green Minions, slowly climbing a crumbly stone wall. 

…Just green Minions? 

"Where are the brown and red hordes?" Jinx asked sharply. 

Gnarl briefly looked at her above the pool´s light. "The Master sent them back. There´s too much security in this fortress. This is a matter for those able to make themselves unseen." He narrowed his eyes. "That also means you´re excluded from this mission, horde leader." 

"Understood," nodded Jinx. "But why aren´t they back here in the Netherworld?" 

"They´re guarding the Master´s body." 

Jinx nodded again. She could understand that, though the entire horde seemed a bit much to her. But on the other side, if the Empire would find the unguarded body of the Overlord, all hell would break loose for them. 

Satisfied, she bent over the pool again. Then, to prevent her voice from breaking the silence in the fortress, she abruptly pulled back. "Where did all those new greens come from?" 

"They found the Hive," the advisor grinned. "And she´s in top shape!" 

"Marvellous," Jinx beamed. "The green clan´s back!" She bounced up and down in her new boots. "Right, I´ll stop bothering you. I have one more question: could I be allowed into the magic room? I´d like to explore my magical potential, if I have any." 

This time Gnarl looked up from the pool longer. "…What are you even thinking?" 

Jinx blinked. "What?" 

"The magic room? You? That´s for Lord Sayron only, girl. Not a hair on my head that thinks of allowing you in there." Kelda looked at him angrily, but he ignored her. "No, not a chance. If you hadn´t had such status in the Netherworld by now, I´d have you flogged for just coming up with the idea." He gestured with his bearded chin. "Go make a web for the green Hive at the barracks. She has to be hung at a height of about two meters above the rocks so the newborns can lower themselves out. Make yourself useful!" 

"I´m sorry, Jinx," Kelda called after her as she spun around as if stung and was running away at the other end of the hall with one snap of her ropes – the arcanium spikes leaving deep scratches on the black marble floor, even if she knew it´d be the Minions who´d be polishing them away.

**General: Awh, poor Jinx. To be fair to Gnarl though we can't just let people visit the master's magic room. Even if she is his cousin.**

**Gnarl: Glad to see someone has my back around here. Kelda wasn't too amused either, especially since our Master has encountered that, alluring female.**

**General: Yeah she is pretty good looking.**

**Gnarl: I wonder if Kelda would object to us inviting said female down here?**

**Kelda enters with a large club.**

**Kelda: What was that Gnarl? I'm going to get you for that as well as hurting Jinx.**

**Gnarl retreats behind me.**

**Gnarl: If you want to get me you have to go through him.**

**Kelda: Okay.**

**General: Please review readers. Not the face!**


	13. Deadly Hide and Seek Part 2

**I limp into the room.**

**Gnarl: Ah, General Maraxus. How are you?**

**Maraxus: I just got attacked by Kelda with a club. How do you think I feel?**

**Gnarl: Well, it's probably for the better, this way I had time to make my exit.**

**Maraxus: Ugh, okay so let's recap. Our Master is inside the Green Leader's body, he is inside a fortress filled with Eradicators and Sentinels. His horde is split apart and you didn't allow Jinx into the magic room resulting in me getting brutalised. **

**Gnarl: That about covers it. Well, except for that enchanting female.**

**Maraxus O.O: Ssssh don't mention that woman. If Kelda hears us talking about it I won't be able to crawl to Mortis this time.**

**Gnarl: Fair point. Anyway, you peasants enjoy this story. It belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart.**

Deadly Hide and Seek Part 2

Invisible or not, the red glow burned like the fires of the Abyss as Sayron flung himself over the wall as the first of the horde. His spotted, scaly skin seemed to be bathing in acid. He ran over the crumbling stones in silent agony, hoping he could outrun the light and get to the Sentinel´s back… 

"Be ssstill…" 

The Sentinel saw him! He was invisible and still the Sentinel saw him as if he was ablaze with light! Sayron´s Minion heart hammered with sudden, desperate panic as he saw the Sentinel turning to follow him, now and then looking away at the rest of the horde, but mainly focused on him – the Overlord! The light grew in intensity and started beating like a gruesome heartbeat… 

"Away from there, Sire!" Gnarl cried out, no longer able to remain silent. "Run!" 

A whispering chuckle. "You can´t essscape me…" 

Then the whisper became a hideous gurgle. The Sentinel turned around on the spot and clawed at his throat. From the wide, dark blue sleeve a greyish hand with shockingly long fingers appeared. 

Aphid, the youngest green Minion, materialized with wide eyes at the moment his claws stained the Sentinel cloak with dark blood. Their inhuman enemy thudded to the wall face-down. 

A Sentinel had been killed. 

Aphid rolled off the body, like Sayron with a scorched, raw skin. His eyes were shining brightly, however, and his ears were raised high and trembling. 

Sayron´s heartbeat calmed to the normal fast rate of the Minions as he stood there, high atop the fortress walls, looking down at the Sentinel´s body at his clawed feet. They could be killed. They could be killed. 

In a whim, he jumped at the limp head and tore off the hood. 

Around him the green Minions hissed sharply. Sayron himself bared Jagged´s teeth in shock. In his head, the Minion was as baffled as he was. 

He hadn´t expected a normal human, but not this either. The Sentinel was completely hairless, and the skin on back of the head, turned to them, was of a pale, gleaming grey with every vein visible in painful sharpness. 

Sayron gestured to the rest of the horde and together they rolled the body over. This time he thought to be prepared, but as a soft, pearly light played over the stones he could hear even Gnarl gasp for breath. 

The nose and mouth were absurdly shrunken and the face was completely hairless as well, but that wasn´t the most shocking. The eyes were. 

The eyes were orbs of nacre. Without white, iris or pupil they were lifelessly staring up at the Everlightian stars. They weren´t reflecting those stars, but something did move in those eyes, like a pale northern light… 

The Overlord had seen this before. And he had done so on his one travel to the Wasteland.  
>"Is this…" he started, hesitant because of the absurdity of the idea. <p>

Gnarl swallowed. "I don´t know how, Sire, but this certainly resembles the… Tower Heart…" 

"Lenses of the same material?" 

"There is no material like it anywhere in this world, Sire. These have to be pieces of the same Tower Heart. Lenses of that material would gift the wearer with the ability to see magic like it´s tangible… that would be the reason he kept going after you and gave Aphid a chance to sneak up behind him. You possess the most magic and Aphid the least. He simply couldn´t see him well because he was blinded by your power." 

"And the magic deformed him like this…" 

"…so the Empire concealed him from sight, him and his colleagues. What a sacrifice to bring, certainly for a nation which despises magic as much as they do…" Gnarl paused for a moment. "Let me think this over, Sire. You have to make haste for the Hive. I advise to not take the lenses, they´d slow you down. Maybe we´ll get the chance to take them later on and unite them with the shard you found earlier in the Wasteland." 

Sayron nodded. Inside he wondered what surprises the Empire would have waiting for him the next time. He was baffled by the fact they´d been able to get their hands on a piece of his father´s Tower Heart, seemingly large enough to supply all Sentinels with such lenses. He knew the rage would come once he had the time. 

He and his horde jumped down and put their shoulders under the green Hive again.

**(NETHERWORLD)**

The floating rock soared past a white-foaming waterfall, bouncing from rock to rock with crushing force before plunging down into the immeasurable depths, took the last turn while nearly toppling over so badly someone with less experience would certainly have been thrown off, and docked at the plateau where the hanging bridges left for the barracks.  
>Jinx stepped off. <p>

She hadn´t thought Gnarl would have denied her access to the magic room. She was angry he´d sent her away like that, after all that had happened. Her boots came down to the basalt floor with thuds, and some nearby browns looked up at her. Two of them lifted their helmets. "Jinx." 

She nodded at them. "Boys. Do you have any rope left for me? I´m going to weave the web for the green Hive." 

One of the browns who´d been sitting atop a higher rock peak jumped off immediately. "Lower platform of our barracks," he pointed. Jinx looked in the direction he meant. There was the cliff where her barrack, too, was attached to, the deepest depths just below it. She nodded and stepped to the edge. She grinned – she knew the Minions were following her to see her take the shortcut down. 

Somewhat urged on by Gnarl´s lack of faith in her abilities, she let herself fall straight down, kicked herself away from the sharp spikes sticking out of the cliff, swept to the right and landed with bent knees on the small wooden platform where the ropes lay stored. Far above, she heard the Minions cheering. 

She threw all the ropes over her shoulders. They were quite heavy, but after having bounced through the entire Everlight Reef carrying Sayron´s sword on her back she was used to something. She cast out her own vines and supply climbed back up to the brown Minions. 

_So, the green Hive_, she thought. _Gnarl said it´d have to be hung two meters above the rocks._ She looked around. 

Around her, the basalt rose and fell, full of irregularities, black spikes sticking out, some polished parts which sometimes bore the marks of Minion graffiti – resembling cave drawings – and in various spots falling away to the abyss, the lava flow or streams of roaring water. She knew there already was a spot reserved for the blue clan, on a jutting rock plateau and the stony shores near it. But she couldn't make out a place fit for the green Hive. 

She looked up. 

Unless… 

"Is there some wood left over as well, boys?" 

**(EVERLIGHT)**

A roar was audible straight through the wall. The sound was far-off now, but Sayron would have recognized it everywhere. It was a grass bear. 

_Didn´t you say those didn´t have territory near here?_ he asked Jagged. 

_No, Master_, it sounded in his head. _Surely, we came here often._

_Then that bear has to be trapped, like the gnomes…_ What was the Empire doing, anyway?

Did they think they could put everything they didn´t like away in little boxes? Well, they certainly wouldn´t be able to pull that one off with the Netherworld! 

Above their heads, the crumbling ceiling let the starlight filter through. The passage, overgrown with fleshy shadow plants on all sides, led them straight to the east. By this time, Sayron had a pretty decent image of the fortress in his head, with Gnarl´s help. They were headed for the north-eastern quarter – a new courtyard. From there they´d be able to return to the central part and probably to the elevator platform that´d take the Hive closer to the outer gates. They wouldn´t have to run through these dark passages for much longer – very soon, he´d be back inside his own body and able to welcome the greens into the Netherworld. 

The expected courtyard unfolded before their eyes. Sayron noticed how Jagged´s pupils narrowed. He saw the closed gate at the other end of the square very clearly, but the duo of Eradicators was clearer still. He searched the walls. No Sentinels. Thank Vessperion. 

Invisible, they shot over the courtyard towards the gate. It was closed, but the wood was so rotten there was a hole visible through which they´d fit easily. It was high up in the doors, however, so Sayron was the first to fling his claws into the soft wood and started to climb up. 

A spouting sound and a blue bolt behind him. The Overlord immediately let himself fall down to defend his horde. 

"Keep that thing quiet," one of the Eradicators grumbled in a low voice. "Cardea won´t be happy if we waste all the energy." 

"Didn´t you hear the centurion? They could be invisible!" 

"Doesn´t mean you´re to exhaust your cannon! You know the Emperor isn´t just handing them out!" 

Sayron started to relax – this kind of fight equalled safety to him – when the rebel Eradicator suddenly fired again. This time the bolt did reach them. Whisper, who´d been standing right next to him, ready to jump, was yanked forward and disappeared into the cannon in a fountain of dark blood. 

"WHISPER!" 

Sayron only realized the cry had come from his own mouth as he was already on the Eradicator´s neck. Jagged had taken all control and was clawing at the copper helmet like a lunatic. Three other greens followed, but the other Eradicator was already storming for them – they might be invisible, but the blood spouting from their victim´s throat betrayed them more than visibility. 

_Jagged!_ Sayron roared. _Leave it! Escape through the gate!_

It was useless, he realized – the green Minion couldn´t even hear him. The bond between the four survivors was much stronger than he´d estimated. He probably wouldn´t even be able to calm Jagged with the knowledge Whisper wasn´t lost forever. 

"Idiot!" Gnarl´s voice loudly sounded through the chaos. "Allow your Master!" 

But Jagged hadn´t seen Gnarl as a leader for too long. He didn´t listen and didn´t let go even as the other Eradicator sucked two more greens off his companion´s shoulders, right next to him. The two became visible as they were dragged into the cannon. Right after that their victim fell over and hit the stones with a deafening copper clatter. 

Jagged snarled and hissed like a wild animal, and immediately jumped over to the other Empire-born. He was no match for all greens at once. It was Aphid who struck the final blow. 

Sayron managed to regain control over his host with pure, blazing rage, there in the blood-stained courtyard. "I should have had Aphid, not you, fool! Let me ensure you, once we´re back in the Netherworld you´re at my mercy! I don´t know what ways my father had to keep Minions obedient, but my dungeons and torture chambers are more than suited to ram some brains into your skull – cracked as it may be once I´m done with you!" 

Jagged was a shadow in his own head, trembling with fear and fury. He kept silent, but his feelings were an open book to Sayron. The green horde looked at their leader in confusion, a battle in one body. 

Then Jeeper looked up. "Master!" 

A red light shone down on them like a bloody sun. It was so bright Sayron couldn´t see the cloaked figure behind it, but he now knew for sure there were more Sentinels in the fortress. 

He bared his teeth and hissed at the dead Eradicators and the world in general. Then he clawed himself up and wrung himself through the wooden gate, filled with the knowledge the entire fortress now knew what and where they were. He sprinted out in front of his shrunken horde, with a hammering heart and the furious hope the Hive was still unguarded. 

**(NETHERWORLD)**

The rock ceiling above her head was a forest of stalactites. It would have been the perfect home for the red Minions if it had hung above the lava flows. That wasn´t the case, however – in fact, it didn´t hang above anything but the immortal fire glowing up from miles and miles deeper. This rock ceiling hung over the abyss beyond the Minion area, though it didn´t reach all the way to the Tower itself. Jinx had cast her gaze on it earlier, but she had never shot between the stalactites. Now, that would change. 

It was an ideal place to weave a web of ropes… if you had a place to start. That was why she now flung two ropes straight up so they became attached to two widely spread stone spikes. Behind her, a quickly assembled team of browns dragged in the wooden boards that weren´t needed for the expansion of their own barracks. A couple of reds watched from the rocks – they wouldn´t be able to help, with the risk the entire business would catch fire. 

Faster than expected, Jinx and the Minions managed to hang a small wooden platform from the ropes for the horde leader to haul herself onto. From her higher vantage point, she started attaching the boards to the stalactites more tightly. With a lot of directing and yelling, a true network of ropes formed and the first browns were brought over. They started to expand the platform. A floating island was forming above the abyss. 

As the Minions were working on the platform, Jinx climbed up in one of the tight ropes and to the stalactites. She hooked her feet in it and cast out a new rope, so a horizontal connection was made between the two peaks. In that way she started weaving the web Gnarl had asked her to make. 

After a surprisingly short time a complex system of ropes had come into being, in some points spanned tightly, in others loose like the vines of the Everlightian jungle itself. It was so dense that some Minions felt confident enough to climb into it and walk around in it.  
>Jinx looked up at her web from the platform as the browns finished the hanging bridges to connect it to the solid basalt. "Criticize that, greybeard," she grinned, satisfied with herself. "I call that a proper home for the Hive, certainly after the place she´s in now."<p>

**(EVERLIGHT)**

Again Sayron and the horde scrambled out behind the gate on the balcony, but their path stopped here. They´d finally reached the elevator platform that´d take the Hive down.  
>Sayron went over to the wheel, thought twice and peeked to the other side through a slit in the gate´s wood.<p>

The Hive still stood in her old place on the curved balcony, but she had company. A group of ten soldiers in green tunics was standing around it, their spears on the outer world. On the wall above it was a Sentinel. Sayron bared his teeth as he saw that, a grimace on his invisible face and his claws spread wide. Behind him an inaudible hiss rose from the horde. 

They silently crept to the edge of the balcony and looked down, to the square where the Hive would end up if they´d lower the elevator platform. There were three Eradicators stepping around – as far as he could see now, between the wild gardens. Sayron´s widened eyes shot over the walls. Two… three… four Sentinels… plus the one above the Hive… 

"Impossible," he whispered. He looked around. Next to the passage they´d shot out of, there was one final entrance. He visualized the fortress map. There was one more quarter they hadn´t entered yet, and that had to be connected to the central square below them. If they wanted to clear the way – suicide or not – they would have to go through there anyway. 

"Follow me…"

Not far from there resounded the scrambling of claws over rock. The faint glow of yellow eyes and white-hot skin played over the crumbling stones. 

Gloob, at the head of the shrunken horde, his spiked Nordbergian mace in his claw, carefully shifted along the wall and looked around the corner, his ears tightly against his head. Behind him the brown and red Minions were deathly quiet. 

They´d wandered through large portions of the fortress, but hadn´t been able to find the passage through which they´d entered. They´d even ended up on top of the walls once, as they´d followed the stairs up too far, and nearly gotten noticed by a Sentinel keeping watch on the same lonely height, but luckily looking the other way. 

Though, luckily. Gloob chewed his tongue. He had no idea in what situation the Master was now. 

The only Minion not as nervous as the rest was that young red on his first travel, Fever. He was standing around actively, his hands glowing like he was about to light his fire any second. His eyes were burning with something the temporary brown leader recognized to be fury – it seemed like that little spark wanted at it, even more aggressive than Stripe… 

He could hardly stand it either, it was true. Creeping around in silence was no business for a strong brown Minion like him. He could fight, he could die if it was necessary, but the Master wouldn´t be happy if he did – their lives had a price. So silence was their salvation.  
>Gloob slightly raised his ears. Not far away was the sound of heavy copper footsteps and a poisonous buzz…<p>

An electric crackle accompanied the footsteps of the two Eradicators stepping around as cautiously as they could, on the final courtyard in the south-eastern quarter. The view was much like the north-eastern quarter they´d just come from, except for the fact there was another sound… 

Growling. Snarling. The sound of claws, rasping over stone and rattling along steel. Sayron knew that sound all too well, and that went for the two other survivors as well, Scythe and Ramul. The newborns had yet to be introduced, but they would be very soon… 

Grass bears. 

There was no Sentinel here. They probably had all been sent out to block their way and hadn´t counted on the Minions attending this courtyard. Sayron and the greens could shoot along the walls unseen and unheard, on their guard with double alertness to not catch the Eradicators´ attention this time. They scrambled over to the cages, sunk into the fortress walls. Small wheels had been constructed next to the steel bars, without doubt needed to open and close the cages. Sayron directed greens to each of the three gates with a nod. The wheels started turning, seemingly on their own account… 

The gates opened and the bears´ growling changed tone. 

Then, without the Eradicators being so much as warned, the gigantic, black and white monsters wrung themselves out of their cages, stormed past their invisible liberators like a deadly whirlwind and threw themselves onto the Eradicators. Copper armour was no match for the heavy claws. Once thrown over, the giants had no chance to get to their feet again, two hundred pounds of furious grass bear on their chests. Sayron looked on with a twisted grin of malicious pleasure. 

On the other side of the courtyard was a passage. It lead to the central square. 

This was it. 

He silently ran for the bears, who were growling to each other above the mangled bodies of the dead Eradicators. He halted just before their black-ringed eyes and, for a heartbeat, he showed his own yellow ones. 

Immediately his ears were blown backwards by a mind-numbing roar. The bears leaped forward, but the Overlord was already out of their way and invisible again. He looked on, chuckling to himself, as the bears went for the passage and towards three or more victims. 

Then he followed them to the central courtyard.

**(NETHERWORLD)**

Jinx stepped off the floating rock self-satisfied, and swung her boot onto the prow platform of the Tower. She strolled through the stone arch and into the throne room with a very pleased feeling. Once inside, however, an uneasy sensation already crept into her stomach, because the Minions, however scattered they were busy with rat hunting, polishing or carving high up on the walls, were all focused on the mist pool. Quaver was sitting on top of his harp, but he too was looking at Sayron´s actions with a steely gaze. For the briefest moment he caught Jinx´ eyes, and as she saw his expression she knew for sure something was wrong. 

She walked over to the throne with large strides. "Gnarl." 

The advisor didn´t look up. His ears twitched. "Yes?" 

"What –" 

A red light engulfed the entire pool. A deafening, rasping whisper stormed her eardrums. 

"Ssstop!" 

"Master!" 

Jinx looked down at the pool, her eyes wide with horror and incomprehension as she tried to understand what was happening. Suddenly the connection to the upper world was a sea of red light, now and then broken by flashes of darkness, but those were so sudden she couldn´t make out anything in them. But what really made her heart hammer was the fact she recognized voices, and those didn't belong to green Minions. She recognized the lower sound of Gloob and the higher voice of Nails. Browns… 

"Climb up to those Sentinels and set them on fire!" That had to be Sayron. And he was commanding reds. 

She spun around to face Gnarl. Her eyes were flaming. "With his body, you said?" 

Gnarl looked at her with narrow eyes. "Go. _Now_ they need you. But in the Unholy One´s name, don´t screw it up." 

"No, there are lives at stake!" she yelled at him. She stretched out to the portal. "Everlight fortress!" 

With a stroke of blue lightning she was gone.

**(WHERE SHE SAID)**

The Sentinels were on all sides at once. Their light filled the entire courtyard and pinned the Minions in place, fully visible and in hellish pain. Not just the greens were vulnerable now, but also the brown and red hordes, who thought they´d finally found their Master again, would die here. Sayron got caught in the focus of the red lights and screamed, unable to get away or even see anything. His scaly skin flaked and faded. 

A couple of red Minions, halfway up the walls on their way to a Sentinel, fell down as the light hit them. At the same time a grass bear smacked down one of the Eradicators, but then reared up growling and swung out a paw to two defenceless browns. From the neighbouring courtyards, soldiers in green tunics ran into the square. 

"Gnarl!" the Overlord cried. 

He couldn´t hear the answer. The buzz, the crackle of the Eradicators, the roar of the grass bears and his own heartbeat drowned it out.

Jinx´ heartbeat was deafening in her ears as she ran from the Tower Gate to the fortress, panting and as fast as she could. From within the walls, a red light shone out to her. All possible sorts of noise echoed through the valley. But above it all she heard the Minions, and she didn´t even know how many of them were still alive to scream. 

The main gate was closed. That didn´t matter to her anymore. 

She stood there for a moment, her back arched and her fists clenched, then she swung the peaks of her rope into the cracks between the stones and pulled herself up. Three perilous jumps along the wall and she shot out above it, to land on her feet. She twisted the rope in her hand. Then she spurted over the walls and towards the red lights. 

There were others on the walls. They weren´t running like she was, they were standing still – and they were spreading the red light with their raised hands. She heard whispering laughter, even with all the noise around it. 

Sentinels! 

She hissed, furious with Gnarl, the Empire and herself. How could she have allowed herself to be distracted like that? She should have seen Gnarl had been keeping her busy!  
>She took a run-up, bent low and let her spiked rope shoot out to the nearest Sentinel. She landed on the wall right next to him and hit him hard with her fist, at a loss for readied rope.<p>

The cloaked figure staggered, but then turned. Jinx had drawn her dagger by then, but let it clatter off the wall as the Sentinel raised his hand to her. Deep within the hood gleamed two far too large eyes, but she couldn´t see it anymore – she bent double in agony. 

_Pain!_ Pain like nothing she´d ever experienced! It seemed to connect to something deep within her, making her insides feel like they were on fire – 

A sudden glow through her tightly shut eyelids. Something else was on fire. 

The Sentinel, to be exact. The pain withdrew in waves as the hooded figure clawed at his burning cloak and tied to whack the fire out with his staff. On his other side on the wall was a lone red Minion. 

Fever. His black-lined eyes were gleaming in the light of the flames. 

"That pain is your magic," his voice sizzled. "You´re ready, Jinx." 

The burning Sentinel managed to raise his hand again. The red glow flickered and came to life again, aimed for the Minion of the same colour. 

Then another light came to life. It didn´t have a special colour. It was just _fire_. And it was coming from Jinx´ outstretched hands. 

The inferno raged through the air unhindered and hit the Sentinel. This time he was consumed completely, screamed with scorching vocal cords, and then fell down from the wall. The Eradicators looked up for a moment. 

Jinx panted and stared at her hands. Then she looked at Fever. He was already sprinting away over the fortress walls. 

Magic! She gasped for breath in elation. Finally, active magic! 

She wondered if Velvet could see her now. 

"_Jinxie!_" 

That voice made her look down immediately. "Kniff!" she yelled back, feverishly searching the chaos below for a trace of her friend. "Where –" 

She found him the moment it happened. 

A blue bolt from the barrel of an Eradicator´s cannon. The splash of black blood in the red light of the remaining Sentinels. A cut-off scream… 

Jinx screamed herself, a raw sound with all the air she had left in her body. A scorching feeling filled her completely and she threw herself off the wall, Mortis´ Well forgotten, the height forgotten, Gnarl, Velvet and Sayron forgotten. She swung herself out of range of the Sentinel lights and the Eradicator cannons and ran for her target, the Eradicator that´d been foolish enough to take her, _her_ brown Minion from her… 

As she flung herself onto the enormous shoulders her fingertips started tingling. As she ripped off the helmet her hands left molten prints in the copper. She gripped the end of her rope and sliced the arcanium peaks across the gigantic man´s throat, making him stagger and grasp at his windpipe gurgling, but as he refused to fall she gripped his neck with her bare hands. She hissed like an enraged animal, even louder and more furious as another Eradicator came running towards his struggling colleague. 

What followed was an implosion of blinding light, at first of a normal fiery colour, but then fading into a deep, strange purple. As it ebbed away and the Minions, Empire-borns and even the nail-biting viewers through the mist pool were no longer shielding their eyes, Jinx was sitting crouched on the blackened Eradicator´s breastplate. It was all that was left of him. 

The soldiers around her backed away. The Sentinels all aimed their light at her. 

Jinx stiffened as she was caught in the focus of the lights. Then, with one enormous jump, she was at the fortress wall and climbing up. 

Sayron saw a faint silhouette against the stars, running over the wall. As Jinx was halfway, he had to shield his eyes again so a second violet explosion wouldn´t scorch his sensitive retinas. His heart jumped as he saw a dark Sentinel´s cloak flutter down like a dead bird.  
>No one could see it, but Jinx´ eyes were wide open and stared through the night, seemingly unseeing. Fever, still atop the walls and like the other reds busy lobbing fire at the battle in the square, ceased his deadly rain for a moment. <p>

"So it´s the madness that awakens her…" 

Deep within the green Hive, something stirred. A number of thin emerald beams of light pierced the growths. Not one of the soldiers guarding her noticed a thing.

"Jinx." 

She ran over the crumbling wall, jumping to avoid being hit by the arrows from below or tripping over loose stones. Her hands were burning, but her head was strangely light. 

"Jinx! Stop fooling!" Irritation was clearly audible in the voice. Jinx shook her head as if to chase off an annoying fly. 

"Turn around, you! With that chaos down there you´re the right person to lead them back to the Hive! Are you listening?" 

"…Gnarl?" 

"The pool´s at it again," the advisor sighed, but she could hear the relief in his voice. "Right! You put up quite the show back there…" 

"Show?" Jinx slowed, her feet spread wide for balance. She looked down at her hands and seemed to jolt. She looked up at the red lights of the remaining two Sentinels. "…Kniff…" 

"Don´t think of him! Just… focus for once!" 

Jinx looked back at her hands. "Leave me alone –" Her words changed to a shriek as she suddenly caused another explosion to blow away part of the wall. "What´s happening to me?" 

In the Netherworld, Gnarl removed his hands from his eyes. "As long as you don´t do that in my face, I´m quite happy with it. And now, back to the square with you! Come on!" 

She looked back. There was still a deafening noise coming from the courtyard, but now it was mainly the roar of the grass bears merged with human voices. Whether it was the Minions getting the upper hand or simply being unable to scream, she didn´t know. 

She ran back. Once above the square she searched for traces of the Overlord. "Sayron!" 

"Here!" 

She looked down. Straight below her, at the foot of the wall, were two glowing yellow eyes. 

"Go back to the Hive and get it down here. I´ll look for the quickest way out." 

The eyes flashed, and Jinx knew it was incense. Sayron wouldn't have this from her. But he knew he had no other choice. The green Minion nodded and let his eyes fade away again. A heartbeat later, a soldier fell down gurgling, not two meters away. Sayron would leave a trail of blood on his way to the Hive. 

Jinx looked around, then down again. The Hive could only exit through the main gate. That meant she had to clear the way, with the Minions´ help. But she had no control over the explosions at all… 

Rage seemed to trigger them. 

She thought of Kniff. He´d called for her before the Eradicator had killed him. 

Her hands spontaneously started tingling again. 

"Here I come," she growled, a moment before letting herself fall off the wall.

Both Jinx and Sayron would have been shocked if they could have actually seen the main gate at that time. For it was opened slightly, ready to be pushed further. A stream of people was slipping out at a constant rate. The most of them were soldiers, but there was also a red-cloaked centurion, a duo of Eradicators and a Sentinel. And then there were the unarmed figures, men and women in richly decorated togas… and in the middle of the group, most protected, in a sedan chair, a grey-haired woman with the most valuable jewellery of them all. The appointed governess of Everlight, the leader of the tropical Empire colony – Cardea. 

"Search the surroundings," she snapped at one of the soldiers from her high seat. "I don´t want any gnomes or monsters on my back on the way." 

"Certainly, milady," the soldier saluted. He and a small number of others hurried out ahead of the fleeing group, to clear the way – not very different from what Jinx was doing right now, in the courtyard, her new armour already covered in blood. 

Not very long after, one of the soldiers suddenly raised his head. There, on the hill west of the fortress they´d just fled, glowed a strange light. 

He gripped a colleague´s shoulder. "Look there…"

The Minions had dispatched two Eradicators with joined forces, and it was a grass bear that felled the last one. During Jinx´ absence, two of the bears had disappeared into neighbouring passages, probably back into the more sheltered parts of the fortress. The last bear strolled to the wall comfortably, ignored everything around him, lowered himself and fell asleep, tired of killing. 

That didn´t go for Jinx. As the red Minions climbed the walls behind her and got the – now fearful – Sentinels moving, she was inside a circle of spears within three seconds. Quivering spears, that was. 

She lazily took her ropes from her shoulders, but her eyes were flaming. "So you think you´ve got a chance?" 

There was never any answer. The arcanium spikes trailed a silvery line through the air and gripped the men at the throats or simply cut them. One of them was dragged to Jinx, upon which she killed him with the spikes of her other rope and took his spear. She broke the wood on her knee and gripped the shorter part in her fist as an improvised knife. She´d be able to make a mess with that as well. 

"Stripe! Where are you!" 

Next to her a soldier was run through. Suddenly she was back to back with a brown Minion. 

"Stripe is dead," she heard. Nails bent his knees slightly and stabbed with his Nordbergian spear like he´d been stung. 

Jinx´ heart sunk for a moment. Then it flipped over to anger. Nails didn´t dare turning around as a purple light reflected off the armour of the soldiers in front of him. "Gloob is leader now, I reckon?" he heard. 

"Yea," he answered. "Is ahead. But no longer leader." 

Jinx stretched her neck. "Gloob! We have to get out of here! Everyone to me!" 

The brown must have dived between the soldiers´ legs, because he was next to her and Nails before she knew it, so they formed a triangle. Around them, the chaos was already subsiding – the soldiers seemed to be losing their motivation. It also seemed as if they were all fleeing to the same place… 

"Boys! Reds in the middle, browns around it, greens… create some panic!" 

The Minions started flowing together. There were even less than Jinx had feared. Both the horde leaders were dead, and many of the strongest were too. Remarkably enough however, most of the new and newborn were alive for the largest part. 

"Hold your ground! They´re fleeing, it´s almost over!" She took a jump to the walls and climbed up. Yes. The green Hive – that had to be her – came for them on invisible shoulders. "That way!" she pointed. The Minions hurried over in their formation. Just then, the Hive came down to the square. 

There were still soldiers present, and upon seeing the Hive, their courage was ignited again. They were really focused on not losing her, probably because they knew what it was. Very, very important to the Netherworld. 

But around the greens carrying the Hive were the reds, lobbing fire to everyone coming too close. And to protect the reds there were the browns, fighting with the last of their strength and all the more dangerous because of it. Gloob was almost foaming at the mouth. The Hive neared the main gate. 

Jinx let herself fall down and ran along the walls, snatching soldiers away from the Minions and long past counting how many lives she´d ended this night. This had to be one of the most fierce fights she´d ever been tangled up in, but the adrenalin was pumping through her veins so fast she barely realized it. 

They reached the gate. But there was something strange happening there. Something wasn´t right. 

Jinx, next to the Hive, came to a standstill. The soldiers around them were thinning out and a few seconds later, she had no one left to murder. They were streaming out of the fortress… 

…but to where? 

She sprinted out of the open gates and after them. The men in green tunics were running to the right, up the western hill. There glowed a light she knew. It was a Netherworld light, blue-white and irregular as lightning. 

She turned to the Hive. "What´s happening there?" 

Sayron turned visible, near the greens carrying the Hive. He opened his sharp-fanged mouth to answer. 

Before he could, however, his glowing eyes rolled up and he fell to the forest floor. 

Next to her ear, Gnarl uttered a strange, pained sound. "His body!" 

Jinx looked up at the hilltop. 

And ran. 

"Unholy Lord, don´t be late!"

On the western hill the rock claw was still opened to the tropical sky. There was still a thread of lightning magic attached to it. The other end was still connected to the raised hand of Sayron´s true body, hidden in heavy armour and his embroidered sash. The gargantuan blade hung limply down in his other hand. 

This all, however, only still was this way because the browns and reds who´d stayed behind to defend the body were fighting so fiercely. But they wouldn´t keep it up for much longer against all the soldiers who´d streamed out of the fortress, for they had trouble with two Eradicators and a Sentinel as well. 

Not far from there, hidden in a sea of man-high pitcher plants, governess Cardea was looking on from her sedan chair, rubbing her hands together in glee. The very next morning she´d be able to send word to Arcadiopolis… word of the fall of their main enemy! Who cared for the defence of the Hive if you could get to the Overlord himself in his weakest moment? With all the attention with the strange plant like thing, no one was left to defend him… 

Something ran the last few meters to the circle of pure chaos around the rock claw and plunged in with a battle cry. 

"_VESSPERIOOON!_" 

…Or was there?

_I´m a granddaughter of Fengor the Red. I can do this. I can do this._

Such were the feverish thoughts of Jinx as she fought for not just her own life, but also Sayron´s this time. It was fear-inducing to have him this close, but not fighting nonetheless. If he´d been with them, with his gargantuan sword and the blue lightning in the palm of his hand, this battle would have been over in no time at all, but she didn´t have any control over her new magic and she was _exhausted_… 

The Minions from the fortress caught up with her and threw themselves into the battle, but the same went for them. 

Only Fever was fighting with full force. That Minion… 

She saw his eyes. He didn´t say anything, but she could just hear what he was telling her with that gaze. 

_For Kniff._

He clenched his fists and opened them again. Pinpricks of light, so bright they hurt her eyes, were glowing in his hands. 

"Out of the way!" Jinx screamed. "Trust me!" 

Her position as horde leader was the only thing that could have made this possible. All Minions spontaneously turned their backs on the rock claw and spurted downhill, to safety. The soldiers looked around in bewilderment, but some were smart enough to push on to Sayron. 

"Vessperion," Jinx whispered. 

Then a light raged over the hilltop, purple and red and all-consuming white, pure destruction and ten times as hot as the Nordhaven inferno. Fever´s eyes turned into white stars, but Jinx couldn´t see that anymore. She was engulfed by the purple light of her own magic, enforced by the strange powers of the red Minion. 

The unworldly flames wiped the hilltop clean. The soldiers, the Eradicators and the Sentinel were like dust in the wind. No pitcher plant was left as the fire was abruptly extinguished.  
>The rock claw, however, was still upright. As Jinx fell over senseless and the glow of Fever´s eyes diminished until they were yellow again, the connection with Sayron flickered and his body fell down as well. This time however, he was simply unconscious. <p>

On the other end of the valley, Cardea´s sedan chair was a disappearing speck. The governess was a whole lot less certain about herself as she vanished in the remains of the night, on her way to her next hiding place. 

At the western horizon, the moon touched the trees.

Later. 

The sun rose, a blinding light in the pale sky. 

Two gleaming yellow eyes blinked open in the very first light of this new day. They were located just above a set of glistening claws ripping their way down between two flaps of black silk. The green Hive, still in the abandoned valley full of bodies of both Minions and humans, had given birth to a single Minion this time. 

In the distance a grass bear strolled back into the jungle. At the same moment the Minion let himself fall from the cocoon. 

His eyes were elongated and black-lined. 

He scurried around the Hive for a moment, a broad grin around his canines. Then his ears flew up. He had heard a crackle. 

A moment later a fireball landed right on the spot he´d been standing. He had jumped aside so fast it´d been barely visible. 

Fever jumped out between the pitcher plants. He was grinning as well, but his smile looked a bit less permanent. He outstretched a glowing hand. 

The green Minion backed away slightly and snorted. Fever burst into laughter. Then he went to stand next to the green Minion and looked in the exact same direction with the exact same expression in his eyes. "What are you going to call yourself?" 

"Stabbit," the green lisped. 

"Nice."

A metal clatter resounded on the blackened hilltop as Sayron painfully climbed to his feet. He looked around for a moment. Then his eyes lingered on the limp body of his brown horde leader. 

He knelt next to her and grabbed her shoulder. The amber gem flashed for a moment, but he didn´t even notice. "Jinx." He coughed, surprised by the raspiness of his voice. As he tried again, it sounded more normal. "Jinx…" 

A heartfelt groan escaped the figure in bloodied leather. She was blackened and mangled so badly he barely recognized her in this light, but the swears and curses, growing in intensity, she was now muttering were definitely coming from the Jinx he knew. Not long after she opened her eyes. They were quite bloodshot. 

"Kniff," was her first word, but it was directed at him. Sayron nodded in answer. Jinx managed a broken smile. 

"Welcome back in the land of the living," Gnarl´s voice floated towards them cheerfully. 

"Shut it, Gnarl," came from two mouths at once.

Later that day, as everyone had painfully dragged themselves to the Tower Gate, they hung the Hive in Jinx´ web. What happened then was nearly enough to forget everything. 

As all ropes had been attached to the Hive a wave of greenness seemed to spread, in ripples down and to the sides along the entire web. Living vines wove their way through the rough ropes and then started to _replace_ them, to everyone´s bafflement. The web became thicker, grew outgrowths and then spontaneously started blooming with poisonous, trumpet-shaped pink flowers. The Hive immediately responded with new black threads. 

The arrival of a new clan had never been more spectacular. 

After that, Sayron sacrificed five orbs of golden life force and ordered Mortis to drag a young brown Minion from the Well, along with certain others. He had the feeling this particular Minion wasn´t a real contribution to the horde, but he knew very surely he could say very little about his horde leader´s loyalty if he didn´t do this. Jinx´ reaction was clear enough. That day, she didn´t leave Kniff alone for a second and the Minion didn´t even mind.

Later still Jinx, fully healed, bounced to the lower quarters of her mother. Velvet was already waiting for her, a knowing expression on her face. 

"…I´m allowed into the magic room," Jinx uttered breathlessly. 

"I said so," her mother smiled. 

"Just now and then and together with Gnarl, but still!" Jinx hopped up and down. "Magic is…" 

Velvet nodded. Her smile changed to a real grin. "I know. Unbelievable." She looked round, through the high window. There hundreds of vertical lava flows lit the irregular basalt walls of the fabled Netherworld. Their Netherworld. 

"You´re rising, lady…" 

"I know," Jinx grinned. 

A scrambling of claws on rock. A brown Minion ran into the room. "Jinx," he spoke hurriedly. "Master calls for you." 

"Coming," Jinx nodded. She pulled her head cloth straight and smiled at her mother. "See you later." Then she was running up the stairs, behind the Minion. 

"…according to plan," Velvet finished her sentence. Her grin grew wider still.

**Maraxus: You see! I knew that Velvet was up to something! What do you think of that Gnarl? Gnarl?**

**Velvet: He's not here**

**Maraxus: Where did you come from?**

**Velvet: Never mind that, so you think I'm planning something do you?**

**Maraxus: Yes I do. It is my duty to my Master to report this at once. So if you'll excuse me.**

**Velvet blocks my way**

**Velvet: You aren't going to tell anyone, and this will make sure of it. (Places a hand on my face) You never heard me say anything that made you want to report me.**

**Maraxus: Must. Resist (crawl to computer) must upload chapter. (Upload chapter) now everyone who reads this chapter will know… what will they know?**

**Velvet: That I am purely innocent.**

**Maraxus: Sure, I don't see any reason to doubt that.**

**Velvet: Good, now you readers better review this, Jinx deserves some gratitude for her amazing rescue.**


	14. Old Enemies, new allies

**General Maraxus: Well it's great to be back. And for a bonus we've got those smelly Greens back in the Netherworld. Yeah not so great there.**

**Jinx: Plus I'm allowed into the magic room**

**General: Yeah, who knew you had it in you. Though when we found out about your family tree it was pretty obvious you would have magical abilities. That was some fireworks display you put on.**

**Jinx: Yeah, though I'm hoping to improve, and maybe learn some new tricks.**

**General: Well it'll be interesting to see what happens. Okay readers, I do not claim this story it belongs to Sunjinjo on Deviantart, so does Jinx here. **

**Jinx: I belong to who?**

**General: Enjoy. Now, let's go see how those Greens are fitting in.**

Old enemies, new allies

The smell of the jungle was wonderful and comforting after the confusing events of the past day. He´d shot through a fortress for the fate of his clan, had seen little ones for the first time in months, and then, shockingly abrupt – he'd died. The next thing he knew was the feeling of water on his skin, like he'd been swimming – something greens never, ever did. He'd moved his fingers in surprise, looked back and seen a blue Minion, a clan he had only heard of in stories before. And then he'd seen everything else. 

Black basalt, in strange, sharp and smooth forms, everywhere around him. A roaring river right next to him, the sound beginning to register in his regained ears. He'd felt the presence of thousands of other Minions, brown, red and green – and the Hive, hung not far away, as she was meant to. 

"Whisper!" 

Something had thrown itself onto him in a strangling embrace of friendship. "Jagged…?" 

And now he was back on Everlight, in the valley where he'd died. But they were no longer bound to this island. 

They were free to travel the world, and their home lay deep within the earth. And they really had a Master again. 

Jagged had behaved so outrageously just after his death, that same Master had threatened to finish him off for good. Whisper's leader did sport a huge scar at the height of his cheek spikes, one of which was missing. It had broken with the blow of a metal gauntlet. But the green leader had maintained his position and the wound had been healed by a blue Minion commanded to do so, and all greens were now carrying long knives on their claws that'd been forged especially for them. Lord Sayron was not unjust. 

He and his clan members, who possessed the best sense of smell of any Minion clan, they had to have it to follow each other in invisibility, were now busying themselves sniffing out the fortress fugitives´ route. They quickly left the valley for the more open forest, once again resounding with the cries of birds and beasts, and the distant roar of a hornbeast.

The Overlord kept twitching his fingers, Whisper noticed. He twisted his sword around in his hand and seemed to test every step he took. He'd only been a green Minion for a short time, but he still needed to get used to his own body again. 

Jinx, too, was uneasy. She kept looking around and always had a hand on her ropes as she stepped along between the towering trees, next to the horde. She'd narrowed her eyes, as if she was deep in thought. 

Then a voice broke the sounds of the forest. 

"Those spiders are everywhere!" 

All at once, everyone's attention was with the same thing. The yell had sounded from far ahead, but still close enough to be audible amidst all the other sounds. Ahead, the land sloped down. A few greens became invisible, and flying leaves marked the way they ran forwards. Jinx swung up a tree and followed them. 

"Yeah, crawling about like they own the place…" 

The ring of weaponry reached her ears. And something else, a high shrieking resembling the scream of fairies, but far angrier. She knew this sound. It was the spiders of Everlight. 

"They can keep it as far as I'm concerned…" 

"Well, maybe not the beach." 

In a small clearing, far below her high branch, ten or so Empire soldiers were hacking away at a number of black, gleaming spiders. They didn't pay any attention to her, and even as the Overlord came to standing beneath her tree, clearly visible, they didn't look up. She could hear the greens´ hissing voices, however. 

"Spidies…" 

"Love spidies…" That certainly was Ramul, and there was plain adoration in his voice, very different than what she was used of him. 

"Aww, they're just so very huggable aren't they Sire?" Gnarl´s voice sounded next to Sayron.

"Hmm… the greens seem very taken with them. But these are more aggressive than usual. I wonder why." 

"I hate spider cleaning duty!" one of the soldiers yelled angrily as he ran his sword through another spider. The greens hissed in incense. 

"Horrible blighters!" 

"Cut their legs off!" This was met with shouts of agreement. 

That was the final straw. Jinx knew it had been Ramul who stormed forward first, because he was growling furiously as his first victim fell over dead. The soldiers were no match for the greens, who had, after all, survived the entire fortress back in the valley – most of them, anyway. 

When the soldiers were out of their way, the greens materialized and looked at the spiders. They looked back, with red eyes from the undergrowth. Still up in her tree, Jinx watched closely. 

Then the spiders scurried away. 

In a whim, Jinx flung out her ropes and flew after them through the trees. Spiders. She knew this place. 

Her ropes reached into nothing. 

With a scream, she tumbled forward through the last tree's crown, as an astonishing, sunlit image unfolded ahead of her. A reflecting surface threw the light right up in her eyes as she plunged down to the waters of a familiar lake. 

The water sprayed up high. A second later Jinx broke through it again. "I knew it!" she yelled. "I´m back!" She laughed wildly. "I have a sense of direction!" 

The Minions came after her with much noise, bumping into the spiders by the sound of it. Jinx looked up and saw quite a lot of them run above her on barely visible threads. They disappeared, in a surprisingly familiar image, into the huge spectacle in the middle of the lake. The temple. 

In full sunlight, it was even more spectacular than the day she'd arrived on Everlight. It rose up out of the lake she'd been fished out of by fairies in all its triangular glory, the carved face of the Mother Goddess at the top of it. The goddess´ mouth was still wide open, with quite a lot of spider silk in the dark entrance. The sunlight gleamed on the smooth stone stairs leading up from the water, to the top. 

She looked back up. There was Sayron, standing on an overhanging part of the cliffs like a stone guardian himself. He was staring up at the goddess´ face, his sword firmly in his hand but clearly astonished. 

Jinx picked herself a portion of cliff not covered in spider webs and dark holes which no doubt contained whole hordes of arachnids, and climbed back up. "Pity we can't go inside." 

"It´d be dangerous but fun," Sayron answered, "but look over there." He nodded to the ground next to him. There, on both sides of his armoured feet, were two round, carved holes in the rocky ground. One of them contained a familiar object, emitting a red glow.

Jinx´ eyes started gleaming as she looked back at the Overlord. "Key Stones…" 

"Something important is hidden inside," Sayron assumed. 

"Ah, precious memories," Gnarl spoke sarcastically. "I don't know why they can't just use a piece of metal like everyone else. Trust elves to be unnecessarily complicated!" 

"There are only two this time," Sayron countered. "The other one can't be far away."

Jinx started to doubt that after exactly two hours. She was scouting through the forest beneath her from the treetops, with the use of all her speed but all the time looking down so intently her head ached with the strain. She didn't know which colour the Stone would have, but she did know the shape and material – the specific kind of rock from the reefs that was also used for these keys. But the Stone could just as well be covered with leaves, hidden in the undergrowth, between the risen roots of a tree, or even buried. She knew the Minions and Sayron were also searching the surroundings, and she herself had a couple of reds with her who could match her speed. Every time she saw a place where the Stone could be hidden she sent them down, but they hadn't found anything yet. 

It was in a moment like that she suddenly saw a huge ball of fire flame up below her.

"Fever," she hissed. 

The fire had scorched an enormous, smouldering hole in the undergrowth. She wondered how a newborn could be that powerful – not for the first time. She slid down along her vine. However, before she could ask what was going on, she already was answered. Hoarse, pulled out of the Well the day before, raised his head to Fever. She knew this wasn't an act of aggression. On the contrary, in this way the red leader exposed his vulnerable throat and removed his curved horns. This was a token of subservience. 

She went to stand below her tree and watched. Something from her former self pitied Hoarse because he'd have to give up his position, but she knew this was the way of the Minions. She'd known it was a matter of time before the almost unnaturally strong red would rise to be horde leader. 

That was the reason she narrowed her eyes in surprise as Fever outstretched a glowing hand and gently pushed Hoarse´s head down until the two were looking at each other again. Then, Fever showed his throat himself. Hoarse´s eyes flared in confusion, but Fever shook his head briefly. 

"What…?" Jinx muttered. Was Fever like Giblet, glad to be strong in a lower position? But with all his explosive power, he seemed born to be the leader… 

She jolted as the two both looked her way. She walked towards them slowly, but before she could ask anything Fever pointed east, the direction they'd been searching in. "Look, Jinx." 

Jinx followed the pointing claw and briefly held her breath. There, beyond the dense undergrowth, the land suddenly sloped down into a rounded valley. In the middle of it, a rock formation rose between the trees, unusually pale and chalklike. It was seemingly soft, for there were several depictions of the elven goddess carved out in it, along with a gate at the front. To the left of that gate was a round hole in the rock. 

A Key Stone slot. One. 

They'd found it.

It took some time to find Sayron and return to the limestone formation with him, but eventually the Overlord was standing in front of the gate and the red Key Stone was standing next to it. The gate opened itself. The horde and its leaders stepped inside.  
>Once inside, the formation seemed larger than on the outside. Their footsteps were muted between the high white walls, which sported the imprints of shells in some spots, to Jinx´ surprise. Could this valley have been flooded once? She could hardly imagine it with the forest outside, but if the temple lake would dry up one day, the forest would take it over as well… <p>

"So you seek to spread your darkness further afield, Scourge of Nature?" 

Jinx ripped her gaze away from the walls and was blinded instantly. Straight ahead, where the tunnel widened into a cave, a bright, sky blue glow illuminated the white limestone even further. 

Sayron shielded his eyes, but peered between his fingers. "…Fay?" 

"We meet again." In the light's centre was a stunningly beautiful woman, and Jinx realized she was actually emitting the light herself. Her skin was a lighting, pearly white; her intricately braided hair would have been black if it hadn't been shining with a bluish glow. She was dressed in the most richly decorated elven clothing Jinx had ever seen, with high shoulder pieces resembling wings, elegantly crafted arm caps and a matching belt. Her eyes were slanted and her ears pointy. This was a very high-ranking elven lady… 

Sayron bowed mockingly. "Greetings, Queen." He stretched to look around her. He could see a second blue glow, almost falling away in the woman's. "I see you have a gift for me." 

Queen Fay frowned. "You are too late. I have found a new place where all creatures of light magic can exist in safety; the Last Sanctuary." 

Jinx nodded silently. She understood. This was the empress of light magic, as Sayron was the master of dark magic and Emperor Solarius that of the third side in this war, the Glorious Empire. She did know there were three forces at war here, but until now she hadn't seen much of the light legions. That was mainly because they avoided battle and hid in the last places they thought to be safe, but they could very well be forced to fight once Sayron tracked them down – something they were getting close to, as they were penetrating increasingly deeper in the hidden corners of this sacred island, Everlight. Who knew, they might find a real elven bastion soon, but now they'd found the Queen on her travels, with the Key Stone she'd taken away from the temple… once again, a sign something valuable was inside. 

Would this Queen Fay be skilled in combat? Judging by her glow, she boasted a gigantic magic reserve, but she didn't make a move of attack. 

"Does it have to be this way, milady? We both belong to domains of magic; we should be cooperating against the one who wishes to see all magic and therefore both of us dead… Solarius." Sayron winked and outstretched a gauntleted hand to the elven woman.

She brought her hands together in front of her chest and sent him a destructing gaze. "Please accept my parting gift," she spat with a voice of poison, "for we shall not meet again." 

She raised her hands and sparked a blinding blue light, which slid down and engulfed her. Then it changed form. There suddenly was a whole new form between them and the Key Stone in the cave of limestone. 

Jinx swallowed.

The elven queen materialized far to the west, in an elegant arbor made out of living, flowering tropical trees. They were standing with their roots in large bowls of earth, on an enormous round wooden platform high above the ground. All around this platform were hundreds more, connected with hanging bridges. In the giant trees they were attached to, hanging baskets were rising and descending as transport. The sound of elven voices was everywhere, mingling with the higher-pitched sound of fairies and gnomes. In one of the many clearings below and around this forest city resounded the deep call of a unicorn. 

This was Orntal, one of the largest and last bastions of light magic in Everlight. The others were all but evacuated to the Last Sanctuary, there where the Overlord would never dare searching. Queen Fay couldn´t bring herself to empty this city. This was her capital, her forest palace. 

Fay's blue glow illuminated the leafy twilight as she walked out of the arbor and to the platform's edge. She was heavily hoping her messenger would prevent the Overlord from entering the temple. Then, her thoughts went to her other, most trusted envoy, far away in the north.

He'd been observing the town. And he liked what he was seeing now. 

The mines were abandoned, the dust swept up by explosives and pickaxes had settled. The people hadn't gone working today, because their masters hadn't forced them to. They, in their turn, hadn't been forced by _their_ master, the man with the red beard. 

Kivner's grip on Nordberg hadn't been as strong as he'd thought.

His green, almond-shaped eyes shot to the left, then to the right. A small number of his Soldiers was still alive and with him, far away from Everlight. The Sanctuary in these icy parts might have been lost, and it had been a heavy loss for light magic, but this would make up for a lot.

Florian Greenheart, without the company of his yeti but with that of other elves with sharpened swords and bitter expressions, stepped off the Nordbergian cliff into nothingness and let himself fall into the quarry. A cloud of dust flew up, followed by more as his Soldiers went down as well. 

Florian looked around to the other elves. "You'll follow, but at a distance," he spoke, in a voice betraying he was used to being at the head. "The people mustn't see you yet. Nordberg has been conquered twice now, and I don't think it'll be difficult to bring them over to light magic, but we have to be careful." He paused. "If the Scourge's monsters start attacking, you can show yourselves as much as you want, but don't kill them. Capture them." 

The Soldiers nodded. "We'll follow you over the rooftops, Florian. Good luck." 

Florian stepped into the back alleys of the town. His Soldiers flew up onto the roofs, and became nearly as invisible as green Minions.

The green Minion with the black-lined eyes hissed like a rabid cat as the last blue sparks whirled around the body of the newly appeared figure. Strictly speaking, it was a woman, but her lower body was firmly rooted into the limestone, there were broad, dark leaves fanning out on her back and arms, her whole body was covered in thorns and her hair consisted of living, versatile stalks. Her eyes glowed a pure, haunting green. Stabbit knew, somewhere in his insane whirlwind of a skull, this wasn't good at all. And so he immediately jumped for the dryad's head, blew his stinking breath in her face and pierced her neck with needle-sharp teeth. White juice dripped from the corners of his mouth. 

The dryad let out a high shriek and raised a thorny arm. A moment later, Stabbit smacked into the limestone wall, twenty thorns embedded in his scaly chest. He was, however, giggling like a madman. 

Red-veined, fleshy leaves folded around the blue Key Stone like a cocoon. The dryad laughed, a high, resonating sound echoing off the walls and running shivers over Jinx´ spine. 

Sayron pointed at the plant-woman. "Burn her!" 

The reds were already on their way. They scrambled for the dryad along the white floor and walls and threw their fire, but it seemed to ricochet off her, as if she had a fireproof layer on her leaf like skin. She batted away a fireball with her spiny arm, and she wasn't even scorched afterwards. The leaves around the Stone, too, seemed fireproof.

Jinx decided it was her turn. She ran forward and flung her own spikes into the dryad's stomach, so the white juice sprayed in her face. The greens threw themselves onto her snake-like lower body and started clawing at her roots, Stabbit with the wildest enthusiasm.  
>Jinx stared into the green, narrowed eyes for a moment. Then the magical creature attacked and jagged thorns cleaved through Jinx´ own stomach. She gasped for breath as her leather armour and skin were ripped open and the blood spurted out. She fell back, her hands pressed to the gaping wound to stop the bleeding and heal herself as quickly as possible. Her place was taken by half a dozen of browns, hacking and slicing as if they were cutting a tree, but the wound Stabbit had bitten into her neck, Jinx´ slices and the wounds the browns were now inflicting were all healing visibly. <p>

The edges of Jinx´ wound came together. She painfully pushed herself up. Through the haze before her eyes she could see how Sayron hacked away at the plant creature's lower body, but her clawed hands were tearing at his helmet to reach his vulnerable neck. Blue lightning flashed, and the dryad fell back, the leaf like armour on her chest smoking and crackling. 

The Minions were still busy with the roots, but they were healing so fast Jinx could see them writhing like snakes. The dryad swept her arms around, and the larger thorns came loose and batted the Minions back, the finger-long spikes in their eyes, right through their hands or in their hearts. Raw fell backwards, half his chest covered in lethal knives. Some blinded Minions were hit with another wave, this time lethal as well. Kniff, his bat ears pierced trice and two other thorns in his upper leg, limped away as fast as he could and ducked as a new rain whirred over his head. 

The thorns ricocheted off Sayron´s armour, and he kept dodging those aimed for his face. The white floor was, however, getting covered in the blood dripping from dozens of wounds and cuts on his arms. It did mingle with the dryad's white juice. The enraged shrieking of her voice echoed around the cave. She raised her arms, and new thorns grew out of the scars where the old ones had come off. 

A rope snared her wrist, the arcanium spikes on the inside so the milky juice splattered around. A second one gripped her other arm. Jinx, whose blood still dripped from the barely healed wound and over her legs, staggered forward as the dryad tried to yank herself free, but with both her arms bound she couldn't reach the vines with her razor-sharp thorns. Jinx kept her arms wide, wrapped the ropes firmly around her own wrists and stepped back again. 

Sayron immediately took his chance. As the remaining Minions concentrated on her lower body and back, he let his sword sink into her chest. The juice sprayed around and the dryad screamed so loud Jinx almost clasped her hands to her ears, but the creature kept yanking on the vines. The leaves on her back fluttered as if they were wings and the dryad tried to take flight. 

Then the Overlord ripped his sword out of her body, swung it round and cleaved her neck. It took three swings with full force to fully pierce the bone-tough skin, but then the stalked head flew against the limestone wall shrieking. It fell to the floor, rolled over and came to a rest. Only then the glow in the green eyes faded. 

The rooted body fell over with a heavy thud. The greens jumped off its back, but Stabbit hooked himself in place even more firmly for a moment and clawed at the headless neck like a lunatic, causing more juice to seep from a number of woodring-like grooves. Then, chuckling as if this was the funniest thing he'd done in ages, he jumped to the floor and licked the juice off his claws with a long tongue. Scattered through the cave, the Minions pulled the thorns from their bodies. Kniff tested his wounded leg, one of the spikes still in his ear. 

The leaves around the Key Stone became limp and folded open. 

Jinx panted. She'd heavily underestimated light magic, she realized. This dryad had been stronger than an Empire Eradicator, far stronger. She rearranged her priorities. Maybe it wasn't such a bad thought to forge an alliance with light magic and lay siege to the Empire together, but she held her tongue. That was up to Sayron. 

The Overlord in question shook his sword, so thick white drops more or less rolled off the blade. He couldn't wipe it on the dryad's leaves, because they too were covered in it. He didn't seem very happy that he couldn't clean his weapon, but put it away nonetheless.

"Well done," he said. "Get the Stone; we're off to the temple." 

The Minions grabbed the blue Key Stone, looking around alertly if there wasn't something else to defend it. There wasn't. They could get the object out of the limestone formation without further trouble, and as they took the red one from the entrance, it rolled shut as if nothing had happened.

The cliff where the two slots were located lay opposite the Mother Goddess´ gaping mouth in the temple top, so what happened as the two Stones were in place was expected.  
>Below them, in the lake, something stirred. Then the clear water suddenly streamed off the gleaming stone parts of a bridge, rising from the depths on ancient pillars, connecting and rising until they linked the cliff to the temple, as if the Mother Goddess was sticking out an enormously long tongue at them. <p>

Elegant and efficient. Typical elven craftsmanship. 

The rumbling of the rising bridge ebbed away and it became quiet around the lake again. Then Stabbit turned an ear and then his entire body, a nervous giggle at the back of his throat. 

Jinx turned. There had been a rustle in the bushes, way too close. She jumped for it.  
>There, running away with surprising speed, were three men. They wore light armour, resembling her own. But they were wearing it over green tunics. <p>

"Gentlemen!" Jinx shouted, not even out of breath as she chased after the Imperials with their own speed. "You have no business here; this is a matter of the Overlord!" She faltered for a moment as she saw where the three were leading her. Here, in a part of the forest they hadn't been yet, on the other side of the temple than where they'd been searching, a recently constructed hanging bridge led over a gorge. Below, a river roared its way from the mountains to the temple lake.

The three scouts ran over the bridge, and one of them got out a tinder box. A burning cloth was lobbed to the wooden boards, and Jinx jumped back as the fire ignited. Before long, the entire bridge was up in flames, and before the reds who'd followed her could hurry over it, it was already falling into the gorge. A hiss and a cloud of steam rose from the river.  
>"We've been trying to enter this temple for some time, and thanks to you, we can. Now we can capture that Spider Queen and get her in the Arena, can't we boys?" The scout at the front laughed and exchanged shoulder punches with his companions. "Hmm… maybe you and that Demon Lord too, witches´ spawn. Given you'll survive going in there with those wee little warriors of yours."<p>

Jinx hissed in rage with that suggestion. "Never! We'll ravage the Arena and take down the Imperial balcony!"

Laughter was her answer. "Good luck!" The scouts turned and walked away on the other side of the gorge, chuckling.

Jinx growled in anger, but she could see the gorge was too wide to overcome with her ropes. Instead, she dived down into the river without hesitation. 

The fast-flowing water reminded her of the subterranean river that had killed her. Now, however, she had a considerably better condition and more strength. She managed to stay in one place amidst the rocks and stared up at the rock wall atop which the scouts had disappeared. 

Quite a lot of red eyes stared back from the countless holes she'd missed in her rage. 

The spiders of Everlight. 

It´d be impossible to climb up here without being thrown off, bit full of holes or spun in. Jinx swore in fury, gave one last kick and let herself be dragged away by the river. Half a minute later she was back in the lake she seemed to keep falling in. Soaking, she climbed back up to the cliff. Sayron was waiting for her. 

"Scouts, Lord. They fled over a hanging bridge they immediately destroyed," she reported. "I think they have a hiding spot beyond that gorge." 

"Fair chance Cardea´s there too," the Overlord understood. "Why didn't you follow them over the gorge?" 

"It was too wide and the walls are full of spiders," she said angrily. Then she remembered something the scouts had said. "But those three spoke of a spider queen in the temple. That might be valuable information when we go inside." 

Sayron turned back to the temple. "A queen," he muttered. "Fay wasn´t the only one in these parts." 

"So these spiders have a social system," Gnarl pondered. "There is a chance you'll have effect on the little ones once you kill her." 

"Then what are we waiting for?" Sayron stepped onto the bridge and strode to the Mother Goddess´ gaping mouth with large steps. Jinx was right behind him, the Minions around her. Right behind her, Ramul scurried on, his eyes wide with excitement – he seemed most interested in the spiders. 

There was something moving in the temple mouth, black in black. Red lights gleamed up, there in the crawling darkness... 

It was teeming with spiders in there. 

Then the darkness flowed out of the temple and onto the bridge, shrieking in fury with the intrusion of their domain. 

Sayron unsheathed his sword, still covered in dryad juice. "I'm sorry, guys, but we'll have to kill them. Go!" 

Ramul looked at the spiders with intense sorrow, but then jumped forward. Not a heartbeat later his new knives caused the bluish blood of the animals he loved to spray to all sides.

They didn't share his feelings, for the snapping mandibles were already tearing on his tail and closing around his upper arms. The rest of the horde threw themselves into the swarm, and Jinx was in the middle of it before she knew it as well. 

Two spiders climbed onto her back, surprisingly light and unbelievably fast. An unnoticeable air current wove a barely visible thread around her chest and arms. Soon, there were more.  
>Jinx screamed as the silk was pulled tighter and her allergy kicked in. To her, a fire was ignited on the skin of her arms, slowly but mercilessly. She wiped the threads away like crazy, but that caused her hands to become covered in rash as well. She spun around to whack the spiders off her back, only acquired a new one from the swarm, flung up a rope in despair and swung up to the Mother Goddess´ nose. There she batted the spiders off her back, causing them to attack the Minions again. <p>

Jinx panted. Below her was a screaming chaos she knew she should be part of, but she couldn't. 

"Jinx!" roared Sayron, milling around with his sword, completely covered in spiders. "Get down here!" 

She didn't answer, but pushed herself more firmly into the stone image. 

"_Jinx!_" 

"I'm sorry!" 

Sayron swung his sword around and threw a whole wave of spiders over the bridge, into the lake. The rest seemed to stiffen. The unbelievable aggression ebbed away from the red eyes and they pulled back into the temple. A second later it was as if they'd never been there at all, save for the mangled, black-haired bodies. It seemed as if they'd been pulled back on invisible strings. 

Sayron and the Minions looked up panting as Jinx lowered herself on her vine. "What was that nonsense?" 

"I… I can't stand spider silk," Jinx spoke ashamedly, rubbing the red skin on her arms. "I'm sorry."  
>"If you can't fight, you can't follow us inside," Sayron spoke roughly. Jinx felt herself shrink into the girl she'd been. Then she looked up into his eyes. "No. I'll follow you." <p>

"You'd better not give us any trouble," the Overlord warned. Then he turned back to the temple entrance and strode in, his sword at the ready. The darkness folded itself around him, but there weren't any spiders and his eyes started to get used to it already. Here, at the top of the temple, was only one empty room, covered in spider silk. Sayron looked around in surprise, in the middle of the room. His Minions joined him. Then Jinx went to stand next to him, rubbing her arms all the time. 

For a heartbeat, they stood there. Then the floor collapsed.

Florian was soon at the centre of a group of people. Those people weren't too friendly, wary as they were of everything new and above all against the wishes of the Overlord. The elf could easily have jumped for the rooftops, but he didn't. He showed the empty sheath of his sword. "I come in peace, good people. The peace of Everlight. May the Mother Goddess be with you." 

"The Mother Goddess doesn't exist," a large man close by said in a low voice. 

Florian looked at him with glistening green eyes. The man immediately closed his mouth, stricken by the piercing colour of those eyes. "That must be what the Overlord told you." 

"Lord Sayron went into battle with you and has conquered Everlight," it sounded. Florian turned. "No, he hasn't. Not in the slightest. We keep standing up against him." He bowed his head lightly. "If you're under his command, then why am I still alive?" 

"Why are you here?" the first man asked. Florian turned back again. For a moment he looked at the man, the most trustworthy look he could muster in his eyes. "I want to help you. You've been dominated by the Empire and now the Demon Lord. You deserve to be free. You deserve someone fighting for you." 

"And you'll be doing it?" Despite everything there was hope in the rough voice. "You and whose army?" 

Florian raised his head to the rooftops. "Queen Fay's army." 

The Soldiers let themselves fall down. There were only a few of them, but the people gasped for breath and streamed away from Florian to look at and admire the other elves.  
><em>That´s part one of the plan<em>, the elf thought to himself. He perked his pointed ears. There came the raspy voices. Time for part two.

Jinx screamed as she fell through the dark, much further than she'd expected. Her ropes couldn't save her here. It was like in her nightmares, where she'd forgotten everything she'd learned in the Netherworld and was falling from her sleeping barrack into the abyss. She'd fall to her death beneath the Everlightian lake…

Then there was a deafening splash below her. Her widened eyes caught a glimpse of reflecting water, rippling in waves in the little light falling through the hole in the ceiling. A heartbeat later she was below that surface herself, briefly too dazed to move, but then she clawed her way up and took two Minions up with her. She treaded water with the two in her arms, saw a platform where Sayron hauled himself onto and threw the Minions towards it. A few times of repeating that action and the horde was safe. Only then did she allow herself to look around. 

Most of the reds had landed on the platform, and others were hanging higher up the walls. Others were lying in the water, lifeless and extinguished like dead insects. But it was the reds up on the walls Jinx was paying most attention to. 

Their glow lit the crumbling walls, completely covered in spider silk. Now Jinx was glad she hadn't blindly used her ropes to stop halfway down. The Minions climbed down as fast as they could, because there were spiders coming after them already, on their way to this platform floating in the lake water gathered in the temple. The glow lowered and concentrated itself, so it became increasingly clear what exactly was lurking on their level.  
>A bulbous abdomen, bulging and white with eggs on the underside and covered in rough black hair on the upper. Enormous silk glands excreting the threads keeping it in the air. An angular prosoma, a head with gigantic eyes reflecting red in the dark. Opening and closing mandibles. Eight versatile, clawed legs, each half as long as the throne room in the Netherworld was high. <p>

Jinx stared up at the Spider Queen. She'd never been this afraid in her life. 

Sayron was nailed to the platform for one moment, but then he called his Minions to him with a broad gesture of his arm. "Easy!" his voice sounded through the dark. "We'll get out of this if we work together!" 

Jinx nodded quickly, snapping out of her own terrified daze just in time to roll aside as the Queen snapped shut a gigantic set of mandibles where she'd been standing. She knew she was engraved on the monster's retinas in eightfold, and the Queen had considerably better night vision than her. 

She jumped up, a rope whirling around in her hand. A moment later she lashed the spikes out to the red eyes, but the spider raised her head to bite off the precious, arcanium-covered end. Jinx yanked her vine out of reach of her enemy. 

Then the Queen crawled up the temple wall like an inverted landslide. Something else came down. It was thousands and thousands of pieces of darkness. 

They were surrounded by spiders again, but this time there really was no escape. This was far, far worse than outside on the bridge. Sayron let his sword sweep around, low as a scythe, and straightened out from time to time to keep the spiders off his back. The Minions, who were on the creatures´ height, had it slightly easier, but Jinx was busy getting lost in panic, milling around blindly. 

The spiders kept flowing off the walls, despite the reds trying to keep them on. It was Sayron who, straightening out, cast his gaze upon the walls and saw what the sprinting spiders were revealing. Wooden hatches, constructed long ago by the elves who´d built this temple.  
>Gnarl had been supplying him with battle advice, but as the elder Minion saw the hatches he put Sayron´s thoughts into words. "We're below the lake, Sire! And this room is already partly underwater… if you can get the Queen up there…" <p>

Sayron turned with a swing of his sword and a fountain of spider entrails, searching the room. "Jinx!" he roared over the din, all the time wrestling and clawing at the spiders trying to engulf him from all sides. 

In the other corner of the temple, a pale face beneath tangled black hair turned towards him. He nodded at her hurriedly. "Up the walls! Now! Open the sluices on my command!"  
>She stared at him in terror for a moment, but then swept out a rope and flew up, past the descending spiders and up the wall. On her way, she became tangled up in countless threads the spiders had used as safety lines, and she moaned like a wounded animal. Then she arrived next to the wooden hatches. "Hoarse! Fever!" she called out with a choked voice, her hands full of blisters as she clung to the countless layers of silk. <p>

The reds looked up, lighting figures in the darkness below. Then the fireballs sailed her way and the hatches were ignited. One moment, the entire temple was hellishly lit, and the spiders shrieked in incense. The Queen hurried over the walls towards Jinx, but she already disappeared into the smouldering opening.

The girl panted with fear as she shot ahead, diving to the other side of the tunnel twice to dodge a gigantic searching leg. She outran the Queen's reach just in time, but she could hear the enraged hissing and chittering coming from between those mandibles bounce around between the tunnel walls, echoing a hundred times over. Many scratching claws were coming after her already. 

She ran through the dark, the din of the fight in the large room muted by the body of the Queen pressing herself into the opening, still trying to fish her out with reaching legs and mandibles. Her running footsteps echoed around the tunnel, loud above the rattle of the smaller spiders hurrying after her. 

She kept looking back, but that wasn't such a good idea. Two heartbeats later she smacked into a wall. A dead end… 

However, wall. Jinx let her widened eyes travel around. There was a carved stone lever here, protruding invitingly from a niche to her right. And the wall she'd run into showed a weathered image of the Mother Goddess, a barely visible bowl in her outstretched arms. A line ran over the middle of the image. 

Sluices. "I've found it!" she shouted as loudly as she could. Her voice thundered through the tunnel, and she prayed Sayron could hear her.

Then, muted and barely audible above her own jagged breathing: "Open them…" 

Jinx slipped around the corner, quick as lightning, and yanked the lever down.

"Reds up the walls! Browns, greens, to the sides and to the back!" Sayron roared. He gripped his sword so firmly his knuckles paled, stared up at the Queen still pressing herself into the hatch, and waited. "Come on," he whispered.

He didn't have to wait for long. There was a thud, a gurgle and a rushing increasing in volume with fear-inducing speed… 

Then a gigantic, foaming jet of water spouted out of the tunnel, with such force it made the Queen crash into the opposite wall so she fell into the water the platform was floating on. She milled her legs around with such violence the platform swayed in the waves she created. A stretched shriek of fury and fear ripped itself from her throat, but the jet didn't stop, keeping her down with the millions of gallons of water streaming off the walls. The red Minions hurried out of the way like an exploding star system. The spiders on the platform started to panic.

Sayron looked at the sluice tunnel feverishly, but he didn't see Jinx anywhere. Then he turned, ran across the platform, raised his sword and threw himself onto the floating Spider Queen. He landed on her abdomen, bent over beneath the water's violence and clung on for fear of being flushed off. Then he let his raised sword come down and stabbed the blade into her white, swollen belly, again and again…

The dryad's shriek was nothing compared to the sound now coming from between the Queen's mandibles. 

The spider clawed around, trying to reach the platform, but as the jet of water weakened and stopped there were also a couple of browns led by Scabies who were brave enough to jump at her. The pirate, the only upperworld Minion able to swim, ran to the head and stuck his swords in her eyes. The shrieking changed tone.

With the browns and Sayron sinking their weapons in her belly time and time again, it didn't take long before the eight legs started moving slower. Increasingly weak and halting became the movements of the Queen, until the enormous appendages curled up above the Overlord and his Minions. Some last convulsions and the remaining eyes became glassy…

The angular head sunk back into the lake water.

The Spider Queen was dead.

Sayron yanked his sword back and straightened out as far as he could below the folded legs. The entire temple was quiet. The remaining Minions – a lot had fallen for the countless spiders – looked around dazedly. Their enemies were no longer fighting.

Then all of the spiders scurried to the platform's edge as one. Those up on the walls formed a vertical circle around Sayron. A gigantic amount of red eyes shone in the gloom falling into the temple from above.

One by one, the spiders bowed their heads.

Gnarl chuckled, elated beyond belief. "Now you've killed their Queen, those spiders don't dare attack you! They're… recognizing you as their new leader, Sire! I think the greens will be very happy with this…"

Sayron looked at the platform. There were the greens, their claws and knives still dripping with bluish blood, but with joy in their eyes… an expression he knew, for the browns looked at the Nordbergian wolves in the exact same way. Would this make as good an alliance? 

As he watched, Ramul approached one of the large, gleaming black animals and outstretched a claw. The spider slowly came forward. Then, careful but determined, the green Minion stepped forward and mounted the arachnid, entwining his foot claws beneath the slender waist. He leant forward over the angular head, clawed up with his long knives and hissed in joyous triumph.

Sayron grinned broadly. With the spiders on his side, he would be able to do very interesting things indeed.

"With these new mounts your Minions will be able to reach places even Jinx can't enter," Gnarl spoke.

Sayron abruptly looked up and jumped off the Queen's body. "Jinx! She's still inside that tunnel…"

At that moment, a scratching sound came from the place the water had spouted from. A single spider appeared in the opening, turning clumsily and pulling at something further in the tunnel. Ramul urged his own spider forward and climbed up the wall. Other greens were mounting their companions now.

Ramul and his spider pulled Jinx into sight. She was completely limp, but the light of her magic was sliding over her skin and her eyes were open. They shot over the greens, the dead Queen and Sayron. "So we did it," she said in a small voice. "It's over."

"What happened?" Sayron asked as she climbed to her feet on the platform. 

"There was a niche there, and it rolled shut as the water came," Jinx answered. "There were, however, a couple of spiders getting locked in with me. I couldn't see anything, but I think I got a few of them. Thing is, I got wrapped up so badly I nearly fainted. Luckily that was the moment you killed the Queen and they stopped fighting, and even dragged me back…"

"You have to go in there again," the Overlord spoke. 

Jinx looked around. "Yeah, I see." 

"Gnarl, will it be enough?" 

"I think so," the advisor answered, "it's pretty much endless. If you're quick, you can get away once you're above the outside water level. I advise you to send up the reds and greens first, they won't be able to take it." 

Sayron nodded. "Up with you." 

The red Minions shot up, so the light was dimmed even further. The greens, with varying levels of confidence, also climbed up over the silk towards the hole in the ceiling. Jinx could see there were more tunnels on the different levels of the temple – there was more than just this room with its ruined floors, but no one would ever see it again. 

She nodded to Sayron and swung back to the tunnel, covered in puddles of water on the inside. She ran back to the lever and pulled it down. The niche rolled shut, so she was cut off from the rest of the temple. In the dark, she listened to the roar of the water filling the temple.

The water shot out of the tunnel and into the temple. The platform, which had already been raised as the Queen received her fatal blow, rose even further and kept accelerating this time. Sayron and the browns ascended along the silky walls, as the water kept bubbling up from beneath them as they rose above the sluices. Kniff and a couple of others looked over the platform's edge uneasily; in the knowledge their horde leader was somewhere they absolutely didn't want to be.  
>The Spider Queen's body drifted up with them, and Sayron dragged one of the curled legs towards him to lay it on the platform. <p>

Eventually, the platform bumped into the ceiling and those aboard climbed back up through the hole, Sayron first. He took a few bricks with him, but managed to reach the entrance, where he went to stand safely on the bridge. The browns, too, climbed up and joined the reds and greens already present.

Then Sayron looked down on the water bubbling up from underneath the platform, starting to flood the room. The ferns that had settled between the bricks were already swaying in the current.

"Gnarl, let her know she can stop."  
>"How, Sire?"<p>

"The mist pool, you know that very well."

Gnarl waited, hoping for a reaction, and then swallowed. "I don't control those changes, Sire."

Sayron blinked. "But at the fortress… and just before Velvet entered my domain… who was it?"

"I have no idea," the advisor lied. "But I don't have control over it. I have no way to let Jinx know she can return."

Fever and Stabbit exchanged glances and both grinned slowly. Stabbit giggled, atop a large spider whose mandibles chattered for a moment.

"She'll have to –" the old Minion started, but then his voice fell away. Sayron raised his eyebrows.

"– figure it out herself," Gnarl finished his sentence in another place.

Jinx, leant against the temple wall in the dark, raised her head. "Gnarl! Hi."  
>"Jinx. I should have known," the advisor muttered.<br>"What should you have known?"

"Nothing. They're up, water waster. You can turn off the tap."

Jinx nodded. "Wish me luck." Then she pushed the lever back up. She couldn't hear Gnarl´s answer, because the stone doors slid aside and the water busted in.

Jinx was pushed into the wall by the water's enormous weight for a moment, but then she could muster enough strength to push herself away and swim into the tunnel. Her back grazed the ceiling and new scratches appeared in the leather, but she was swimming fast enough. Bubbles traced a silvery trail through the darkness.

One of her ropes pulled taut around her shoulder. She faltered, and realized the spikes must have gotten stuck between the bricks. She turned, clawed her way back and pulled it free with effort and loss of air, to swim on afterwards.

It was dark inside the temple, just as dark as in the sluice tunnel. Jinx felt as if she was floating through a moonless night as she swam up in the enormous room, and she knew it was because of the lack of oxygen. She kicked her legs even faster, not daring to spread her arms for the risk of losing her ropes, but she didn't have the idea she was rising any faster. 

No light. The platform was blocking the hole in the ceiling.

_No!_

Jinx reached the platform, clawed at it blindly, and kicked herself up. Bubbles streamed from her mouth and she knew she wouldn't be able to take it much longer. 

_I don't want to drown. Not now. I have so much left to do._

A gurgling sound next to her ear betrayed Gnarl was talking to her, but she couldn't understand him underwater. A sound that kept repeating itself caught her attention, however.

"_´ween! ´der ´ween!_" 

Spider Queen?

She drifted up, kicking her legs weakly. She could see a dark shadow, huge and bulbous. The body…

A chink of light pierced the water next to it.

She widened her eyes and tried to reach it with all her might. In the hazy water, she could suddenly see one of the monster's legs was sticking out over the platform, so a slit was formed. She outstretched her arms to the light, felt a stone edge, cool air – blessed air! – on the top of her hands, then suddenly a rough claw and a wild pulling force…

The next moment, she was staring up at the temple's overgrown ceiling, but mainly into Kniff´s widened eyes.

She rolled over and coughed up the entire lake.

"You need to stop panicking like a hysterical peasant wench," Gnarl swore. "I bet the torture chamber's keys you'll die milling about like a terrified elf, you… human! Mortal human!"

Jinx coughed and managed to regain control over her voice. "And who… is scared now, eh?" She spat a last time. "There's only one who's hysterical here and it isn't me, old timer!" She stood up and punched her fist against Kniff´s. The brown Minion was grinning broadly.

"Bravo, Jinxie."

Jinx looked up at Sayron. "Thanks. Without that leg I'd have drowned, and I already know that isn't something I want to try again."

"I would rather not see my horde leader drown," Sayron spoke shortly. As he walked out of the temple, back into the sunlight above the lake, Fever and Stabbit were the first to follow him – chuckling. 

The water level of the lake had dropped visibly. The entire temple was full now, and Jinx knew it could take some time before it´d empty again.

However, they quickly lost the pyramid from view as she led the horde back to where the hanging bridge had been.

Jinx stood on the edge, but jolted as dozens of shades hurried past her. It was the spiders, and they threw themselves into the gorge with more faith than she could ever muster. She saw how their legs were moving rapidly and they cast out threads from their hanging spots halfway down the cliffs, which in turn floated over the gorge on the wind to attach to the other side. The spiders nesting on the other side did the same, so a network of threads was created for the spiders to hurry over, all the time led by the greens on their backs.  
>Sayron turned to the reds. "There's no way you can cross that. Go back to the Minion Gates."<p>

Hoarse nodded and turned, together with his clan members. Fever exchanged a final glance with Stabbit, then with Jinx. A shiver ran over her spine. Then the little fire master turned as well, and disappeared into the undergrowth.

In the meantime, the network had become a true carpet of silk, opaque and so dense it didn't even give way as the browns ran over it. Jinx, too, got over without trouble. And though the threads did fray and rip as he kicked himself away for the last time, also Lord Sayron was eventually standing on the right side of the gorge.

Not far from them, a word was carved into a tree trunk. _Ignavopolis_. There was an arrow next to it, and some caricatures of flowers and women with proportions probably unlike those in the Empire. Sayron grinned in his mouth cloth.

"Let's get properly acquainted with the natives…"

**Maraxus: YES! Die you bug-eyed bitch!**

**Gnarl: I must admit it is good to see another addition to our army. Now the spiders and Greens have become a team we shall be able to use that to conquer the rest of Everlight.**

**Maraxus: Yep, now if you'll excuse me I have to do an inspection of Nordberg.**

**Gnarl: Fine, just don't take too long. I need someone to talk to around here.**

**Maraxus: What about Kelda?**

**Gnarl gives me a weird look**

**Maraxus: Velvet?**

**Another weird look**

**Maraxus: Quaver?**

**Gnarl: Oh just go do your inspection.**

**Maraxus leaves**

**Quaver: Jinx is such a lovely lass,**

** Unlike her mother who's full of class.**

** Pity Kelda is alone,**

** She'd rather have her Witch-Boy home.**

** Maraxus can fairly write,**

** Pity he can't fight.**

** Gnarl is getting on in years**

** If he dies, I might shed a few tears.**

** Our Sire killed the Spider Queen,**

** Plus some spiders for the Greens.**

** Sunjinjo, the mastermind of this plot,**

** Lots of respect to you, thanks a lot.**

**Gnarl: What do you mean I'm getting on in years!**

**Quaver: Please review all you nice people.**


	15. Slavers Enslaved

**Gnarl: For some reason the General didn't return from his inspection of Nordberg so I'll have to do this little segment. Okay, this story belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart, strange female, Jinx belongs to her and if you peasants don't like it the Master will burn your homes to the ground. Understood?**

Slavers enslaved  
><span> 

The little breeze the elves were wafting towards her with their huge palm leaves wasn´t anywhere near enough to subdue the Everlightian heat, not even in the shadowed arbor where she was sitting with her local centurion. 

Cardea outstretched a fat hand to the nervous young commander. "So your scouts have seen him." 

"Yes, milady," he nodded. "The Demon Lord, a group of those monsters and… her." 

The governess looked out of the arbor and over the small city at sea, blistering in the tropical sun reflecting from the white walls and light roofs unhindered. Ignavopolis. They had enslaved the elves from the surrounding villages and put them into service of the Glorious Empire, so they now served the inhabitants and visiting tourists. They had removed the jungle and even now they kept the surroundings safe with spider patrols and hunters for larger game. It had gone so smoothly. 

It would continue going smoothly. 

She´d made sure there was a proper defence before the city gates, but she was quite certain of herself again, now the failure at the fortress lay behind her.  
>"They went into the temple," Cardea smiled. "They can´t possibly still be alive."<p>

Alive! 

It was good to be alive. That was always the case, but all the more when you´d just nearly drowned for a second time in a dark temple filled with spider silk. 

Jinx felt more alive than ever, because she was right in the middle of her favourite situation. She took her vines off her shoulders and watched the Everlightian sunlight glint off the arcanium for a moment. Then she looked up at the wall of spears blocking their way to Ignavopolis. 

She was at the Overlord´s side, who was now twisting his sword in his hand. Behind them an almost animalistic growl rose from the horde, as the Minions got more than ready for the upcoming battle. The spiders the greens were riding hissed and chittered, louder than ever now the clan had followed the example of – again – Ramul as he had started to press his mount´s mandibles gently. Now the fangs of every spider were filled with poison. 

The horde was larger than ever. Way behind the Overlord stood Meph, one of the Minions who´d trained with the Nordbergian material in the Netherworld. With him, an entire legion of browns had ascended to the upper world, so the horde was more like an army now. They were ready. 

All the better, for it seemed governess Cardea had chosen for a good defence, whether she was sure of their survival or not. The lady of Everlight wasn´t stupid. 

Higher up the rock formations stood a group of archers. The creaking of the bowstrings was the only sound breaking the silence in the gorge to Ignavopolis. 

Sayron narrowed his eyes. He wouldn´t wait. 

"_Forwards!_" 

A roar like it had never been uttered by Minions before ripped the air as the enormous horde threw itself between the rock formations like a wave of hacking, stabbing, slicing weapons and started to handle the defending soldiers. Arrows whirred into the chaos left and right, and both Minions and stricken Empire-borns screamed in pain. Blood, red and dark, sprayed out of the battle on all sides and pieces of loose armour and worse flew after it. 

Jinx flung her ropes out and ran over the vertical wall of the rock formation, straight over the fight, past the climbing reds who´d take on the archers. She felt like her heart would burst out of her body because of the rate with which it was beating, the joy of a good fight.  
>She pulled her vines loose and let herself fly over the spears with outstretched arms, to land on the other side with bent knees and narrowed eyes. A new legion was approaching from Ignavopolis, but for now she was on the soldiers´ backside. <p>

The arcanium spikes shot out and became smeared in blood. Jinx drew the long knife she´d taken over from one of the Minions and thrust herself between the weapons with determination, always cautious to heal immediately any damage they did. She worked her way to Sayron, until they could grasp each other´s free hands and fight on back to back. Around them raged a sea of Minions, actually outnumbering the soldiers. This was the very first time that happened, and the Overlord´s eyes were flaming a bloody red with joy and battle frenzy. His enormous sword flashed in the Everlightian sun and severed both limbs and heads with a single stroke. Sayron raised his hand up high and formed a blinding orb of blue energy, sprouting dozens of tentacles of irregular lightning. The soldiers around him fell down, smoking and with their eyes turned away. Where the rocks came together high above them, the red´s fire ignited and cast the glow of destruction against the walls. 

But the true stars of this battle were the greens and their mounts. With Ramul at their head, the spiders swarmed out over the walls like a black shadow and crawled down to the soldiers, to climb over them, take them down with new silk and sink their fangs into their flesh briefly but surely. Often enough, they stood up afterwards, but unstable and not able to see clearly where exactly they left their weapons, so they did more harm to their own comrades than to the Minions. 

For a short while, Jinx had a moment of rest, and she looked up and around her. She realized she hadn´t been this happy very often. The only thing that was missing occurred to her as she saw Sayron, his free left hand outstretched over the heads of the men, sparking with baffling lightning. Magic. She hadn´t managed to unleash her violet explosions after the events in the fortress. 

_Soon enough!_ she thought to herself as she spun around and stabbed her long knife though a new soldier´s green tunic in the same movement. _I´m allowed into the magic room, so as soon as we take Ignavopolis and I´m back in the Netherworld… I´m in for something…_

They were already surrounded by dead and dying men and Minions as Jinx realized Sayron was wiping his sword. They had already hacked themselves through the second legion.  
>The Overlord whistled, short and sharp. Stabbit, who´d been hurrying ahead, giggling atop his spider, returned with his ears drooping in disappointment. "Wait," Sayron growled. "Who knows what´s waiting for us down there." <p>

Jinx gathered the Minions around her. "Stripe, Gloob, Scabies," she muttered to herself as she cast her eyes over the browns in her command. "Meph and company…" She realized that, during the fight, groups of weaker Minions had gathered around the familiar, more experienced horde members. The horde started to organize itself like a true army with its commanders. She grinned at Kniff as he freed himself from the strangling embrace of a dying soldier with a last jab of his dagger. The Minion shook his arm, so a little less blood dripped down along it. It didn´t do much good for the overall picture – his clothes and hat were covered in it, too. 

"You´ll really need to wash your helmet once," Jinx smiled. "I think the sea´s close." 

Kniff grimaced, a claw at his filthy, ragged, tangle-, soot- and blood-covered headpiece.

"Didn´t think so," he answered, shaking his head but grinning. 

The reds came down, Hoarse and Fever just after one another and with perilous jumps. They mingled with the rest of the horde, like pinpricks of light in a sea of darkness. These really were a lot of Minions, even though many had already fallen. 

Sayron looked around. Jinx nodded at him. The Overlord raised an armoured hand and gestured to the town. 

"We advance…"

Marcus Cassius, the skinny, young centurion of Ignavopolis, his golden plumed helmet beneath his arm, just wanted to leave the arbor in the town heights as another man hurried towards him. It was one of the scouts he´d sent to the spider temple earlier, but this time he was gasping for breath considerably more. 

"Centurion! The Demon Lord…!" The man swallowed, caught his breath with some effort and continued. "He´s still alive! He´s right in front of the gates… and the spiders! They obey him like dogs! His devil trickery… again!" 

Cardea rose from her seat. Marcus looked around in sudden panic. The governess, however, remained deathly calm. "Evacuate the city. Take everyone to the jungle on the other side of town and make sure there are ships ready." 

"Yes, milady," he immediately nodded. Then he put on his helmet. His men needed him.

As the centurion and his men arrived at the end of the path out of town and in the overgrown gorge, they found nothing besides their dead colleagues. There was, however, a trail of deep footsteps and lighter claw marks that led into the undergrowth, in a westward detour. 

Marcus swore heartfelt.

"_ Arrrrrrrrr!_" 

Scabies yanked his two swords from the sheaths on his back, let his parrot fly up from his arm and stormed onto the beach so fast his clawed feet threw up clouds of sand. Behind him came the entire horde, and in front of him the fat tourists flew up from their lounging chairs and tried to make off as fast as they could, but only succeeded in throwing over parasols and tables, so they became the horde´s prey very quickly. 

Sayron stomped after them, a lightning orb in his raised hand. "No deaths!" his voice rang out. "We make prisoners this time!" 

A lament even audible to the people and elven slaves in Ignavopolis itself, behind their way to weak walls of tallgrass, rose from the horde. The Minions reluctantly put away their weapons and kept to circling their victims as Sayron enlarged his lightning orb and let the flashes touch the people´s foreheads. Soon, they were throwing themselves into the sand at his feet. 

"We are your servants, Sire," a man whose face had been so arrogant he could have passed for the Emperor himself drooled. "What do you want us to do?" 

Sayron´s gaze fell upon a large number of crates with bottles inside. He knew Minions fought better when drunk, and the amount of mead from Nordberg had seemed to dry up in the Netherworld. "Bring us those bottles."

In Nordberg, the people had other things on their mind than to send their mead down through the Tower Gate. They were currently busy guarding that Tower Gate and mainly the Minion Gates around it carefully, so not a single Minion could pass through. 

As more and more people bowed down to Sayron on Everlight, they were standing up to him in Nordberg. 

Florian Greenheart jumped onto a straw roof, fast as the wind as two of his Soldiers cast a weighed net over three Minions. It had been woven from vines and stalks sung to life by Queen Fay herself, so their weapons, sharp and jagged as they might be, had no hold on them, and the living light magic even burned the creatures of the dark domain. The Soldiers of the Sanctuary had been able to save a number of these nets large enough to equip most of the Nordbergians, and everywhere in town, Sayron´s guardians were tackled. Not one of them was killed, however. Florian was as good as certain the Overlord had his ways to speak to his dead servants. He wanted to keep their black souls here, where he could keep an eye on them. 

The blond elf let himself fall off the roof and swung his own net above his head. As he threw it, he caught a large Minion, with a black-plumed helmet and a halberd of Netherworld durium. The Minion struggled like a lunatic, growling like a rabid wolf and flinging his weapon around so wildly Florian acquired a deep wound over his shoulder and chest. The elf grasped the halberd and yanked it from the leathery claws. Then he looked the Minion in the eye, emerald green in sulfury yellow. He recognized that look. "You´re their leader." 

"And you´re going to _die!_" the Minion snarled. 

"We´re all going to die," Florian shrugged, though he had his doubts on that concerning himself. He looked around him. To the left and right, the magical nets were dragged over the cobblestones, filled with Minions. The Nordbergians were often lightly wounded, but grinning broadly and nodding at the elves. 

"You´ve lost, demons! Nordberg is free!"

"_Hic_." 

Jinx leant against a palm tree, a bottle of Everlightian rum in her hand and her bandana pulled slightly over her eyes. Drinking breaks in the middle of a siege? Why not? 

Right in front of her sat a row of Minions, grins plastered across their faces as they watched Stabbit hold an even larger bottle to his spider´s mandibles and then having a huge swag himself. The green Minion hiccupped again and giggled incoherently. Then he looked over his audience and to Jinx, and the horde leader held her bottle in the middle of a gulp as their eyes met. There was undiluted madness in those yellow orbs, and once the Minion had an opponent again… 

"Ooo dear," Jinx grinned. "This is going to be fun." 

The yellow eyes tumbled into another direction. Sayron came striding towards them. The group of Minions beneath the palm tree sprung up at once and Stabbit´s spider hauled itself to its eight feet uncertainly. Kniff quickly pulled his sagging hat straight. He hadn´t even come close to the blue, rolling sea with it. Scabies was the only one who was even now standing at the water line, up to his knees in the ocean from time to time. He only looked around as Sayron started talking and then quickly ran for his Master. 

"I assume you´re no longer sober," the Overlord spoke as his orange eyes slid over the gathering hordes. "Are you ready to crush this city?" 

A deafening shout and the sun glinted on the blades of dozens of raised weapons. 

"Are you ready to show the Empire who´s in charge now?" 

A possibly even louder storm of approval ripped the quivering air above the beach apart. In Ignavopolis, the people who hadn´t been evacuated to the arbor pressed their hands to their ears. 

"Then let us bring them down! Burn the city wall! Take everything! No mercy for those who fight back! Go!" 

Jinx let her bottle fall in the sand carelessly and stormed to the walls with the Minions.

A crack amongst the overall noise signalled the breach in the wall of tallgrass. The Empire hadn´t even tried to protect Ignavopolis from this side. 

The fire quickly sprung over to the straw roofs of the luxurious houses with their white walls, marble-covered terraces and balconies and often their own, huge swimming pool… 

"This is clearly the place where Empire citizens go when they tire of city life," Gnarl chuckled. 

Sayron clicked his fingers and created fine nets of lightning keeping the fire out, as he had done earlier to protect the Nordbergian ship from the Nordhaven inferno. He wanted to keep this town more or less intact, for it would be his property soon. 

For now, the chaos was worse than it had been in Nordhaven. The Minions streamed in through the growing hole in the city wall and swarmed out through the sloping streets, pushing the people aside and searching for objects or persons of value. Stabbit and his spider were the first to climb the roofs, blinking through the city on a thread of milky silk without even looking where they were heading. 

Then Stabbit´s wide eyes suddenly focused. He´d seen something interesting. Red cloak. Green tunics. 

He was allowed to _slice_ this. 

A touch with a bizarrely long nail signalled the spider it could go down. The green Minion and his mount threw themselves right on top of Marcus Cassius´ troops all by themselves, as they hurried into town through the main gate to prevent damage already done. 

Stabbit grabbed a soldier´s neck, bit shut with his canines and ripped open the man´s windpipe. Then he let go and laughed wildly, flinging his steel claw knives around in a broad circle. He fought so wildly and his spider was so fast and intangible despite the alcohol, not a single soldier could even come close during the time Stabbit was the only warrior. 

That didn´t take long, however, for very soon the rest of the horde stormed through the hysterical mob and reached the soldiers. 

The Empire´s ships docked in Ignavopolis, Jinx knew that. The troops always arrived here. And many of the survivors from the fortress were also stationed here. There were many soldiers, and there was no time to lose – they might be calling for reinforcements via the ships or guard towers even now. 

Almost unconsciously, she´d been keeping count of the soldiers she´d downed since they´d come across the spider silk bridge and now continued counting mutedly, however sometimes louder because she dealt a blow at the same time. "Eighteen… nineteen!" 

A little distance away, already on a marble flight of stairs leading up to the higher terraces, Kniff looked around in surprise. He narrowed his eyes briefly and then dealt the final blow to his terrified victim. "Eleven!" he called out. 

Soon it was a cacophony of Minion voices, so many counting individuals Jinx almost lost track of her own count. And as she already knew, not a single Minion knew how to count properly. 

"Twenty-twelve!" "Tenty!" "Three hundred!" 

"Shut it!" Sayron roared, stepping between the remains of a burning fence, his sword dripping with blood and with red flames for eyes. "Leave the counting to those capable of it! Thirty-two!" 

Jinx abruptly looked up to her Overlord and grinned broadly. "Twenty-three and counting," she announced. 

"Keep going! And leave the innocent alive for me! Thirty-four!" 

On both sides of the formation now blocking their path ran fat Empire citizens as well as elves, but not the elves Jinx knew. These pointy-ears wore shreds of clothing, not elegantly crafted from living leaves like the garments of Florian Greenheart and his fellow combatants. Their hair hung loose and their eyes were fundamentally sad beneath the current mortal fear. The horde leader noticed them running inside small, barely noticeable huts in the shadow of the enormous white villas and holiday homes, and coming out again carrying what little belongings they had to disappear out of sight and into the back alleys. To escape. Jinx looked up to Sayron, but he only nodded. He´d go after them later, she realized.

Nothing escaped his eyes – or his sword. 

"It seems the local elves have been reduced to catering to the every whim of these obnoxious bloaters, debasing their once proud race with the ignominy of servitude… so it´s not all bad." This situation amused Gnarl to no end, Jinx could hear that quite clearly. She chuckled. Then she had her attention with the matter at hand again. 

The Empire citizens had made the elves their slaves. Did Fay care so little for her people, doing nothing to help them? Didn´t she know? Or was she simply not strong enough to take on these soldiers? Jinx didn´t know what to think of light magic. 

Behind the advancing Overlord the Minions stormed into houses left and right, smashing doors, gulping down bottles of wine and rum and dragging along terrified people, sometimes with eight Minions at a time. Soon a large group had formed, surrounded by Sayron´s army and pushed towards the Overlord. "Master!" 

Sayron looked around, and his eyes rippled with malicious pleasure. He raised his hand up high and a lightning orb like there hadn´t ever been one outstretched tentacles of blue light. The citizens fell to their knees. 

"Attack," was their first command.

Marcus didn´t know where to look. Now the people of Ignavopolis were attacking his men, and they were just as confused – they wouldn´t be asked to raise the sword to their own people, or would they? The people they were supposed to protect with those very same swords? 

Still, the tourists from the Empire itself yanked the weapons from the claws of the demons and hacked at his men without hesitation, with at least as much enthusiasm as the Overlord´s monstrous race. The demons stood behind them, watching, and shaking with laughter. 

It didn´t take long before the first soldiers were forced to fight back, but others lost their courage and ran into the streets, in broken and vulnerable formations – which were soon overrun by the Minions or jumped by spider riders. 

Throughout Ignavopolis, everything began to collapse before Sayron´s might. The red Minions set strategic points alight to drive people together, cooperating with the spider riders who advanced over the rooftops and emptied their fangs into everyone who struggled too much. The browns swarmed through the streets in their huge numbers and gradually took over the entire city. From the beach, seagulls flew out over Ignavopolis – the Everlightian equivalent of carrion crows. Before the sun had even set, they´d have an undisturbed feast. 

Ultimately, the soldiers had been pushed back to the very top of town. The houses crowded together on both sides of a marble flight of stairs now filled with soldiers, and Sayron could see their centurion standing above them, unreachable for him and with his remaining men, probably also for the climbers and spider riders. But beyond the troops he could see an arbor, on the overhanging rock in front of a truly gigantic white villa, and the image reminded him of the residence of governor Borius in Nordberg. He could even see a figure in white in the arbor, probably watching over the chaos that had become of her city in panic. 

"Cardea!" the Overlord´s voice rang out. "You´d better take cover! I´m coming for you!" 

A second figure, taller and slimmer, appeared on the governess´ side. Sayron narrowed his eyes and saw lush, dark brown hair fall over slender shoulders. 

A clear message. Cardea knew very well she wasn´t the only reason he´d followed her all this way. 

His eyes widened and paled to a lighter orange. Next to the arbor was a gallows. Another nice way to punish witches… 

"Hurry!" he commanded. Immediately his Minions ran up the stairs, mixed with citizens. All of Ignavopolis would fight for the life of the woman from the beach.

Jinx ran small distances along the walls of the houses, where she could easily grab hold with her hooks because they were constructed with the same soft limestone she´d seen earlier in Fay´s hideout. Every time the archers in the middle of the formation raised their bows at her, she let herself fall and raged out between the soldiers. The spider riders and the reds followed her example, making themselves almost unreachable. Despite that, many fell each time they mounted the walls, being hit by the hardened steel arrows of the Empire.  
>Jinx came down and let her foot shoot out. Her sturdy Nordbergian boot hit a bow and made the wood splinter like a twig. After that, she strangled the archer. "Thirty-three," she growled determinedly. <p>

"Aaaiee!" 

The scream was sudden and sharp as the stab of a knife. Jinx looked around abruptly. 

Halfway up the wall hung a gleaming black spider. Its Minion rider was still sitting on its back, but he was skewered on a long spear. Black blood dripped over the point. The Minion was Stabbit. 

Jinx knew she had to fight on, that this was simply another casualty in their ranks she might see back from the Well, but she couldn't look away. 

Stabbit looked down at the soldier holding the spear with demonic, black-lined eyes. And then, gruesome, misplaced, he _giggled_. 

The Minion clicked his spider´s abdomen and the arachnid scurried up the wall, so the spear was pulled out of the soldier´s hands. Jinx still looked on, and fought only to stay alive, half-heartedly, her attention with Stabbit. 

The green grasped the spear and pulled it from his chest. Then he thrust the far too large weapon down and killed the soldier. A greenish, whirling light closed his chest wound. Then the Minion jumped back into battle laughing. 

Jinx blinked like crazy. What had just happened?

From a roof not far away, Fever watched how Stabbit fought on, a white-hot hand pressed to his face but peering between his fingers. The red Minion shook his head. "Idiot," a voice like flowing lava hissed. "Idiot!" He sighed. "What do you expect from madness itself…" 

Then the entire villa on top of which he was standing was eradicated in a sudden, humongous burst of flames.

They drove the soldiers back to the top of the stairs. A large portion fled down between them, towards their deaths at the claws of the Minions and the hands of the citizens. Another portion stood their ground. Among them was their centurion, a young man with a narrow face and pure terror in his eyes. 

"Marcus!" the governess shrieked from her arbor. "Bring me his head, and the heads of all his little… things!" 

The centurion didn´t answer, but stared straight at Sayron with eyes that were now hard as granite, in a pale face. "Archers in position!" he commanded. 

"Reds, deal with them," Sayron spoke without raising his voice. The red Minions climbed the rock walls surrounding the villa and ignited the fire around their hands. Cardea backed away. 

"You are here to save me, right?" 

It was the woman´s voice. Sayron looked up. There were two soldiers next to her, holding her arms in an iron grip. 

He nodded. She looked back with deep, dark eyes, very different from Kelda´s emerald green. "I don´t care how much blood you have to spill. Just get me out of here!" 

"Bring the beast down! And you! Hang her so he has something to look at while he dies!" 

Sayron raised his sword up high and let it come down in determination. With every stroke he felled at least two or three soldiers. But meanwhile a noose was laid around the woman´s neck.

Back at the Tower Kelda furiously bit her nails. In the mist pool the remaining soldiers swarmed around Sayron, stabbing and hacking with spears and swords, and around him the arrows thudded down into the ground, his Minions and, eventually, the Overlord himself.

He ripped the arrows out with his bare hands, however, and ignored his wounds. She had never seen him this passionate, except in the battle for Nordberg. 

He´d been fighting for her back then. 

Now he was also fighting for a woman. 

She didn´t want to face it. In the pool the white-clad Empire noblewoman – without doubt – was just visible, so much more elegant than her, a simple Nordbergian. So much more fitting for an Overlord. 

She clenched her teeth and ran a hand through her short ginger hair. _She_´d known Sayron since he´d been found before Nordberg´s gates. _She_ cared about him. She wouldn´t give up this easily. She had known more dangerous adversaries than rivalling wusses, beautiful as they might be.

"This is better than the Arena," Cardea chuckled from her high arbor, but she did grip the sides of her seat so firmly her pudgy knuckles paled. Below her Sayron fought himself through her last army, with so much determination he came out in front of his Minions and got stuck without their help. If he wanted to save the woman he had to risk his own hide, but he did it. He did it… and he seemed to succeed. 

The distance to the rock wall was too great for Jinx. She wanted to climb up and cut the noose, but she was stuck in the middle of the clearing, between dozens of soldiers and Minions and unable to reach the walls. She powerlessly watched as one of the soldiers stepped to the lever on the gallows platform, the lever that´d open the hatch below the woman so she´d fall. Jinx didn´t know whether she was light enough to hang. Maybe her neck would break rightaway. 

"Don´t die!" the woman called out from above. "Please, don´t die…" 

Sayron looked up. A battalion of reds raced over the walls and cast irregular patches of light. Fever and Hoarse seemed to lead them simultaneously, and they were also the first to let go of the wall with their hands and to start lobbing fire hanging from their feet. A single red cast his fire so far it almost reached the gallows, but at the same moment the hatch opened. Sayron shut his eyes tightly. Then he opened them again. 

Her neck hadn´t broken. She was hanging there, gasping for breath that didn´t come, her eyes silently pleading him to hurry. 

"Simmer! Sear! To the gallows! _Now!_" he thundered. 

Two of the most fast and agile reds since Parch hurried along the walls. Cardea screamed in protest, but the spears of the soldiers flanking her weren´t fast enough to intercept the Minions. Two fireballs zoomed to the exact same spot and the noose ignited. The woman fell to her knees hard, below the gallows platform and greedily breathed in, unable to pull the noose off her neck because her hands were still bound. 

"Get back here! We´re _having_ that rock!" Sayron wiped over his arms and seemed to realize only now they were wet with dark blood. He carelessly plucked a broken arrowhead from his shoulder and tossed it away over the soldiers´ heads. "Out of my way, maggots," he growled in a low voice. 

He didn´t even raise his hand, but a dark fire started growing in his gauntlet. Crackling tendrils of energy played over his armour. A heartbeat later he electrocuted all remaining soldiers in front of him with a single lightning orb, and kept holding the power for so long there was actually black smoke rising from their eye sockets. As he ripped his arm away they fell to the ground like ragdolls, as if their strings had been cut. 

The men behind him finally lost all hope after seeing that image. Chaos ensued, and that was just the Minions´ specialty. 

The only one still standing between him and Cardea now, the one he´d spared with his lightning, was Marcus Cassius, the centurion. Sayron grabbed him with a bloodied metal gauntlet and lifted him by the throat, a grip at least as strangling as the noose itself.  
>The centurion spluttered in mortal fear. Sayron stared straight at him with demonic, narrowed red eyes. Never before had Marcus been this afraid. <p>

"I like you," the Overlord growled. 

"W-what?" 

"That why I´m not going to kill you. You´re going to be governor of Ignavopolis," Sayron chuckled. He lightly tapped the young man´s forehead with his sword hand´s index finger. A tiny splash of dark blood and a blue spark remained on his skin. His eyes rolled up, and then he belonged to the Overlord. Sayron put him down. 

"Yes, Master," he saluted energetically. 

Sayron nodded at him briefly and then turned to Cardea. "And you," his voice rumbled, low as an avalanche still miles away, but approaching swiftly. 

Meph had run to the young woman in the white toga by now, and was cutting her bonds. She rose and rubbed her wrists, and then stroked the Minion´s ears. Meph smiled dazedly. 

Cardea backed away. "I didn´t mean it," she stammered. "I wasn´t really going to kill you. I wasn´t going to kill her. Please, spare me!" 

Sayron´s finger pushed against her forehead and her old eyes crossed to follow him. 

Jinx climbed up along the rock face and saw what was happening. She was surprised. After all the trouble the governess had given him, in the fortress, the spider temple and here, he wanted to enslave her? What was wrong with the satisfaction of slaughter? She´d almost killed him at the fortress! 

"Thank you, my Lord," Cardea mumbled as she sank to her knees. Jinx had the feeling the real governess was still having a bit of a word in this, too. 

Then Sayron raised his blade. 

"No! Master, what are you doing! I´m your faithful servant!" This time incomprehension and real pain lay in her voice. And Jinx understood. What was better than killing someone while she thought she could trust you? She saw Sayron enjoy the confusion in Cardea´s breaking eyes and knew this was a way better revenge than stabbing a hysterical, screaming woman. She laughed to herself and realized how much darker she´d become during the time – a year? a century? – she´d spent with the warriors of the Netherworld. She quite liked it. 

"Fifty-six! Ignavopolis is ours!"

Later, as the last sunlight fell over the mountains and into sea, Jinx and a couple of Minions were sitting on the warm sands of Everlight´s paradisiacal eastern beach. She´d just chased Kniff all the way to sea, with the threat she´d wash his hat good, and the Minion was still shaking the last salt water off his foot claws in disgust. Some distance away, two other Minions ran along the forest edge, gigantic palm leaves tied around their waists, probably meant for wafting before. 

Jinx grabbed to her right and brought a large bottle of rum to her lips. And enjoyed the moment to the fullest. 

Stripe was sitting on her other side, his centurion helmet beside him in the sand. He nudged her with a spiky elbow. "Wanna bet?" 

Jinx looked at him, an uncontrollable smile on her face and a glowing feeling in her chest. "About what?" 

"You fall down first." Stripe grabbed a new bottle of rum. Just behind them lay about all of the gathered bottles of the entirety of Ignavopolis, like a ripe meadow of glass. 

Jinx fastened her own grip. "I´m on. Kniff?" 

"Yea!" 

Not long after the beach resounded with drunken yodelling.

In a more peaceful place, without Minions to ruin the atmosphere, Sayron took a definitive decision. He rose from his seat at the pool of the villa he´d claimed as his first and strolled down through Ignavopolis, to a larger open square. There he raised an arm. The amber gem flashed in answer. 

The woman, who´d introduced herself as Juno, gasped silently. She´d been holding his other arm the whole time. 

An inky black, spiky Tower Gate dug its way up through the spotless Everlightian marble and spread its peaks. An unworldly blue light drifted up and lit the face of the pretty Empire-born. Juno looked at the Overlord and smiled. "Finally, a way out of here." 

In the Netherworld, the mist pool, discreetly switched off by Gnarl, finally re-activated itself. Kelda caught those last words and knew enough. She wouldn´t surrender without a fight, however. "She´s not coming down here?" 

Gnarl rubbed his hands. "Ah, the more the merrier, aye Sire?" 

A growl like a she-wolf´s was his answer. 

Sayron looked around. Despite the merry sounds now rising from the beach, he knew Jinx and the Minions would see the light from the gate and follow him soon enough. He thought correctly. He deliberately waited up a little longer as he heard the shouting. 

"Blue light! Blue light!" 

"Oh dear. Come on… boys…!" 

"_Hic!_" 

A smile tugged on the corners of Sayron´s hidden mouth. Even Jinx sounded drunk. That hadn´t happened since they´d taken Nordberg. He sighed. He wanted to have the Minions with him. He felt Juno wouldn´t survive the return to the Netherworld otherwise. Luckily his servants seemed to take a liking to her, just as they´d done to Kelda, back then… 

Jinx swung through too far and came to a standstill against a limestone wall. She turned around unstably and nodded, satisfied to see the Minions coming up the stairs, often cradling three bottles of rum each. 

"Reporting for duty, Lord," she grinned. 

"I see so," Sayron nodded. "Good job, but you need to do me one more favour…" 

"Just name it," she said, casting a slightly hazy glance at Juno. 

"Don´t take a side."

"Hm, a little on the dark side, no natural light. But I think I can work with this," was Juno´s comment as the floor closed beneath her and the portal shut its claws.  
>"Ah, I see you´ve already arranged a peasant slave as my lady in waiting! She´s a bit scruffy…" <p>

"Juno," hissed Sayron. "That´s Kelda." 

"Oh! Hm, I have my doubts concerning your tastes, darling." 

"The only thing I´m waiting for, Empire, is for you to put one foot out of line so I can hang your carcass on the wall… with the other pretty, vacant things! Not that I actually need an excuse, come to think of it…" Kelda´s green eyes were ablaze. "Sayron! How could you!" 

"I´m an Overlord," he spoke in a low voice. "I do as I please, whenever it pleases me. You knew that as you followed me from Nordberg." 

"I was special! You said so!" Kelda was blushing in rage. "No doubt you also said it to _her!_" She planted her hands on her hips. "I´ll scratch your eyes out, you…" 

A few Minions had come along through the portal and they now arranged themselves in front of their Master and Juno. Stripe, swaggering slightly, had a look in his eyes that could only be labelled as concise. None of them spoke. 

Kelda stepped forward and raised her chin. Then she rammed the Minions aside without hesitation and threw herself onto Juno, a hunting knife suddenly in her hand. The woman backed away, but couldn´t escape the Nordbergian. "Sayron! What have you gotten me into!" 

The Overlord grabbed his first Mistress´ wrist as she wanted to bring the knife down more successfully. "Kelda, stop embarrassing me." 

"Hear who´s talking! I…" Kelda´s eyes dwelled to the side and found Jinx, in a corner of the hall. The girl stood watching with a pained look in her eyes and her ropes hanging down limply. The green eyes softened for the briefest moment. She yanked her hand from Sayron´s grip. "I understand. An Overlord needs to be able to do as he pleases." She bowed with great exaggeration and strode out of the great hall, on her way to the private quarters. 

Jinx bit her lip. She felt like she should have done something, but she´d been forbidden and she didn´t feel stable enough to actually accomplish anything, or even talk without slurring. She sunk down against the throne room wall. 

Sayron and Juno walked to the throne together. Gnarl couldn´t keep his eyes off the new Mistress, Jinx noticed. She chuckled involuntarily. This could be fun. 

"Your place isn´t too bad," Juno remarked. "It could compete with the Imperial Palace itself." She looked down at Gnarl and raised her eyebrows. "And what´s this? An antique version of your little demons?" 

"My name is Gnarl, fair lady," the advisor spoke in a whole different voice than both Sayron and Jinx were used of him. He even surprised them by reaching up and kissing her hand. "I´ll do my best to make your stay as pleasant as possible…" 

As Juno uncertainly pulled back her hand and turned to the hall, Sayron discreetly kicked his advisor. "No funny business," the Overlord hissed. 

"Certainly not, Master!" Gnarl grinned. He finally ripped his eyes off Juno and looked up at the Overlord. "You handled that pretty well, by the way. I haven´t seen many Masters retaining their position with more than one Mistress. I have to admit the ladies pose a bigger threat than whatever enemy this world can cough up. But don´t be too certain… I don´t think Mistress Kelda will surrender this easily…"

The advisor´s words could just as well have echoed through the dark hallways of the private quarters, that same night. 

The torches on the walls had been doused, but the little light streaming into the Tower from the lava flows outside reflected on the blade of an unsheathed knife. 

Kelda had insisted that she, Juno and Sayron all slept apart that night, and after the tiring battle the Overlord had agreed. There were more than enough bedrooms, but the Nordbergian knew exactly in which one Juno was sleeping. She´d bless her with a better kind of sleep… one from which there was no waking up. Sayron would see his mistake. And she wouldn´t have to disgrace herself any further, not in front of him, nor for Jinx. 

She crept through the black marble arch to Juno´s bedroom on velvet feet. It hadn´t been furbished yet, but the Empire noblewoman did lie in an enormous, luxurious bed from which she was taking as much space as possible. She was sleeping deeply, very different from Kelda´s light, alert naps. 

The Nordbergian stepped to the bed silently as a snow leopard and raised her knife. 

Juno smiled in her sleep. Then her lips moved slightly. "I wouldn´t do that if I were you." 

Kelda stiffened. "Why not?" she asked with a steady voice. 

The dark eyes opened. "You´ll never survive the poison I´ve given you tonight." 

"_Poison?_" 

"That barbaric deer steak of yours? I guessed you wouldn´t recognize the taste of castor beans. Deadly. It grows everywhere on Everlight and I recognized them immediately." Juno brought her hand above the velvet sheets and tossed up a small bottle. "The antidote. Ah, no, no!" She tauntingly pulled her hand away as Kelda took a grasp at it. "If you stab me, I´ll have to throw this lovely bottle out of the window…" 

Kelda´s eyes were pulled towards the window. There, behind magnificent stained glass, lay the deep, deep void of the Netherworld. "Spare yourself the effort," she answered coolly. "So you´re a witch after all. They should have hung you, there in Ignavopolis." 

"Oh, but I don´t use these tricks to seduce men. They wanted to hang me for that, but I don´t… _need_ any help with that." Juno smiled slyly. "You don´t either, I assume?" 

It was as if a lens shifted in front of Kelda´s eyes. Juno wasn´t a cheap, empty-headed floozy who wanted to take Sayron from her. She was sly and cunning, in another way than her, but still… 

The Nordbergian condescended to laying down weapons first. She sheathed her knife. 

Juno gave her the bottle of antidote. Kelda downed it in one gulp. It had no colour, scent or taste, as if it was water, and she wondered whether Juno really had poisoned her after all.

That would only make her more cunning, because she´d completely fallen for it. The glistening in the dark eyes told another story, however. If she hadn´t been standing at Juno´s bed like a murderess, Sayron would have found _her_ dead in bed the next morning. 

Kelda outstretched a hand. "A truce among Mistresses." 

Juno took the gesture and winced at the firm Nordbergian handshake. "As long as your love for Sayron and your hate for Solarius remain stronger than your hatred for me, I promise the same from my side." 

"Fair enough," Kelda spoke with her head held high. Then she pulled back her hand, turned and strode back to her own bedroom with a strangely satisfied feeling.

And miles higher and further west, on a paradisiacal beach on the fluorescent Everlightian sea and beneath millions of twinkling stars, lay a girl and a Minion, sleeping away their drunkenness they´d only made worse with the seemingly never-ending supply of booze from Ignavopolis. The Minion dreamt of flashing blades, great grey wolves howling at a full moon and a chanting horde of his kin, before the gates of a city full of terrified people. The girl´s sleep was full of light, but not the average kind. It was purple, and even in her dreams she knew it was deadly. She outstretched her hands to it, but it stayed just out of her reach… 

Not for long, Jinx swore to herself as she slept. Soon the magic would be hers. 

She and Kniff smiled simultaneously and showed two very different sets of teeth, even though the Minion´s hat lay beneath his tightly shut claw, dripping with seawater and a whole lot cleaner.

**General: I'm hiding at the moment. Those blasted tree hugging elves have this place surrounded and I can't get to the Gate. I hope you enjoyed whatever happened cause I missed it all. If I can free the Minions we might be able to regain control. Right, I'll see you next time. Please leave a nice little review.**


	16. New Horizons Part 1

**Gnarl: Maraxus still isn't back, but I don't care since Juno (sigh) ah Juno, has arrived. So our Master has aquired a truly magnificent female to join us. Read on and enjoy this wonderful story created and owned by Sunjinjo on deviantart.**

New Horizons  
><span> 

"Darling…" 

Lying loosely between the luxurious sheets of his gigantic four-poster bed, crafted into the shape of a huge dragon with spread wings, the Overlord rolled over. His closed eyelids trembled and showed slits of orange light. 

A tanned hand reached for his bare, muscular shoulder. "Wake up." 

Sayron still didn't show signs he was about to open his glowing eyes entirely. Juno looked at the countless scars decorating his dark blue skin admiringly for a moment, but then crept onto the bed.

"Come on. It's been morning for ages, darling…" 

"Ahem." 

Juno looked up. In the entrance to the room, Kelda was tapping her foot. 

The Empire lady quickly pulled her hand off Sayron´s shoulder and rolled off the bed. "Yes, yes. Alright." She stepped back and let Kelda join them. The Nordbergian Mistress gripped the Overlord´s neck and pinched. Hard. 

Sayron immediately shot up and looked around with wide eyes. "Oh! It's you. Good morning to you too…" 

"Juno´s got something to tell you," Kelda said. 

Sayron looked up to his new Mistress, beaming as if she hadn't been hung at all the previous day. The bruises around her neck had started to fade already, and she was wearing a new, snowy white toga. She'd also taken quite a while to do her hair by the look of it. 

The Overlord smiled. "Tell me." 

"Oh, that can wait," Juno smiled back, to Kelda's great annoyance. "Get out of bed first, have breakfast, take it easy…"

As he'd followed that advice and was sitting in the throne room with his Mistresses and Gnarl later on, Sayron didn't want to hear anything about taking it easy. 

"Those little midget thingies of yours, are there blue ones? I saw red and green ones…" 

Kelda had to restrain herself not to answer in Sayron´s stead. She'd studied the writings in the private quarters for long enough to know everything of every Minion clan, also the one still missing. Sayron, however, nodded immediately. "Yes." He grabbed her hands. "How do you know? Have you seen them?" 

"I saw a couple of them being taken to the Arena," Juno answered. She was new in the Netherworld, so she didn't see the value of this information and spoke carelessly. "But they didn't seem too different from the demons you have here. I think they had webs instead of ears, but that was about it." 

Various Minions were looking up to their new Mistress in admiration. Gnarl´s ears were high with excitement. "The Arena? In the Empire's capital?" 

"Arcadiopolis, yes." 

"This is fantastic information! This will complete our domain!" Gnarl stared straight at Juno and gestured wildly while he spoke. "Blue Minions are the most unique of the lot. They're the most magically gifted of the clans, so I shouldn't be surprised the Empire found them. Hmm, come to think of it, we did lose them upstream in the Tamesa… They're swimmers, and very vulnerable. They won't last for three minutes in the Arena, judging by what I've heard about it. And it seems it's been a while since they were thrown in…" 

Sayron paced through the hall, his sash trailing behind him like a sail. "We have to go to Arcadiopolis as quickly as possible, certainly now. We have no time to lose." He looked up. "I'm taking a ship from Ignavopolis. I'll sail for the Reef Gates and open sea, and then to the east and the Tamesa delta. Not over land, the capital will be warned long before I arrive there. I don't want to draw attention before I have the blues back." 

"A proper plan, Lord," Gnarl nodded. 

"Is there any hope for them?" Kelda suddenly asked. "Blues are so vulnerable. So fragile." 

Gnarl looked around at her. "I'd know if their clan had been exterminated," he spoke with a suddenly deeper voice. "There is still blue life force in the world. The Hive still exists. There is a population alive, I can feel it." He coughed. "And besides… if I were in charge, I'd wait for the losses to grow back before I'd let those funny blue creatures run for their lives in the Arena again…" 

In a corner of the great hall, Quaver gripped his jester's staff so firmly the wood creaked. He was glad Mortis wasn't there to hear those words… or Jinx.

A blinding light reflected over the ocean like a skimming pebble, so bright she instantly shielded her eyes. There were more pleasant ways of waking up than on an Everlightian beach with your face straight to the east. 

Though, east. She'd fallen asleep facing Ignavopolis´ walls. She'd rolled over… 

Jinx rolled back. There she saw two steel boots. Next to it were quite a lot of clawed feet.  
>She raised her gaze. "Hello, Lord." <p>

"I'll get you later for not reporting back to the Netherworld after a decisive battle," the Overlord´s voice resounded. Kniff quickly pulled Jinx up and the girl beat the sand out of her clothes. She didn't have the idea it helped – she'd probably find white sand and little shells for weeks to come. 

"Uh. Sorry about that…" she muttered while emptying her boots, searching for her dagger and quickly plucking it from the sand. "I'm ready. What are we doing today?" 

Sayron looked back at the docks of the city, next to which quite many Imperial ships were floating in the azure water. "We're going to the Empire." 

Jinx stared at him, not sure of what she'd heard. "What?" 

"We're going to the Glorious Empire, over the ocean, with one of those ships. I just wanted to let you know before I go and pick one." 

A terrible feeling of déjà vu nestled itself into Jinx´ stomach. "Wanted to let me know… where do I stay during the journey…?" 

"You're coming with us," Sayron said in a dry voice contrasting greatly with the enormous relief those words evoked with his horde leader. "But not yet." 

Jinx looked at him expectantly. Sayron´s eyes rippled. "I'll pick you up at the Reef Gates."  
>"What do you expect of me in the meantime?" <p>

"You'll work on your magic. Gnarl reminded me he's going to show you a thing or two in the magic room." 

Jinx´ heart possibly leapt even higher. She opened her mouth to say something that'd probably be garbled with gratitude, but Sayron already turned. "Alright, boys, let's finish what we started yesterday!"

Ignavopolis´ central marble square was teeming with people and Minions, not half an hour later. Sayron was standing in the centre of it all. "My loyal subjects," his voice rang out, and it was clearly audible how much he enjoyed those words – and the breathless faces of the former Imperials even more. "During my absence you'll look after his city well – better than Emperor Solarius and his lap dog Cardea did. You will go to hunt in the jungle, together with my Minions, and you'll lay any life force you find in the Tower Gate." 

The people nodded obediently. Sayron grinned with the prospect of the amount of new Minions that would roll out of the Hives. "Also you'll work on your own condition. I don't like fatsos." Again, agreeing nods. "And thirdly you'll point me to the fastest ship in your harbours and ready it for me to sail to the Empire." 

"Yes, Master!" 

Two hours later, and the bloated citizens of Ignavopolis had readied a slender ship, with much effort and under roaring laughter of the Minions. It had seven red sails of which the golden suns had carefully been painted over, so they reminded more of blood than of the Emperor. At the tip of the highest mast a pitch-black flag fluttered, bearing the white emblem of the Overlord – a circled tower. 

Sayron already stood on the rail, giving the last instructions to the new leader of the Minions stationed in Ignavopolis. "Rasp, make sure those people keep moving. They have to become my people, and not just in their heads." 

The former horde warrior saluted with a proud grin. His friend Nails stood beside him – he'd stay on Everlight as well. Fifty clan members were getting familiar with every alley of the town at the very moment, just as it had been in Nordberg under the command of Scrunt with the durium halberd. Behind the two Minions stood Marcus Cassius, in name the governor of Ignavopolis, smiling as he looked at the ship. He seemed to be a lot happier than he'd been under Cardea. 

Sayron looked out over the city for one last time. He focused on a white balcony, covered in tropical hanging plants, higher uphill. There a brown figure with black hair leant over the balustrade. He raised an armoured arm. 

A rope shot straight up and the sun glistened on arcanium. Then Jinx turned and a few seconds later a lighter flash went up in the light drifting up from the Tower Gate. 

Rasp cast them off. Sayron turned the wheel and made sure the ship distanced itself from the docks. In the rigging, Kniff climbed to his familiar spot beneath the black flag, in the crow's nest, and Scabies was busy cheering in joy on the aft deck. 

Thus started the journey of the _Shadow Bringer_ to the shores of the Empire.

Feeling a whole lot better than the day the Nordbergian ship had sailed away in the icy mists of Nordhaven Jinx descended into the throne room. Gnarl was already waiting for her. "Is he on his way?" 

Jinx nodded. She bounced from one foot to the other. "And so am I, right?" 

"I don't see you running up two thousand stairs, missy." Gnarl grinned demonically. "Good luck with that." 

Jinx grinned back. "Oh, you know just as well as any other I don't take the inside route anymore. I'd better be wishing you good luck, old-timer." 

With those words she walked out of the hall and swung up a rope to a peak on the outside of the Tower. "I see you in the afternoon! I can wait!" she called into the throne room through a slit like window. There was no answer.

Fifteen minutes later Jinx hauled herself over the prow balcony of the private quarters. Some of the Minions working there nodded at her, not surprised at all about her method of arrival. The horde leader was used to doing this. 

As she walked into the Overlord´s chambers she saw a woman in a white toga, facing away from her and busy examining a carved image on the wall. Jinx politely tapped her shoulder – in the time it would take Gnarl to get here she could just as well get to know the new Mistress. Juno turned and put up large dark eyes. 

"What are you doing here?" 

"I've come to train in the magic room," Jinx answered. "Welcome to the Netherworld, by the way." 

"Thank you, but how did you get in?" She gestured to the stairs, a few meters away. "Is there another way?" 

"There is for me," Jinx grinned with a nod to her ropes. 

Juno smiled. "All this way? Wow." 

"Practice makes perfect." 

"I know," the Imperial lady winked. "Hey… your accent. Do you also…" 

"…come from Arcadiopolis? Yes. In a way. I'm the daughter of lady Velvet," Jinx entrusted her. "You're practically family now, so I can tell you this. She's here too, in the lower levels." 

"The cursed sister of Lady Rose?" Juno clicked her tongue. "Well, well. I shouldn't have expected otherwise. Her daughter? I didn't know she had a child." 

Jinx smiled – she could guess what her mother would think of that reputation. She remembered something. "You'll see the city again soon, you know. Sayron is on his way, over the sea. As soon as he gets to the Reef Gates in the atoll I'm going as well."  
>"He's on his way thanks to me," Juno answered, not without pride. "It seems it was interesting information I had about those blue creatures." <p>

"Blue creatures?" Jinx widened her eyes. "Blues?" 

"You too." 

"In Arcadiopolis? No wonder he was in such a hurry." 

"What is it that's so special about all those little demons?" 

In Jinx´ eyes, Juno suddenly lost quite a lot of her status. If you touched the Minions you touched her. Her face hardened. "They make this domain what it is. Their strength makes sure the Overlord can travel as he wishes and keeps the Netherworld in existence. Everything works because of the Minions." 

"Ah, you're their leader, of course. I'm sorry." There was no regret in Juno´s voice. Her eyes and hand dwelled to the image on the wall, and the beauty of the private quarters. Not one moment her eyes lingered on the Minions working there, bringing in food, cleaning the floor, walls and banners, sculpting the fine images higher up in the vaults… This woman was used to having slaves. But Jinx knew there was a fundamental difference between Minions and slaves. Minions would follow their Master into death itself because they wanted to, out of the courage in their black, but big hearts. 

The horde leader turned around abruptly. She'd wait for Gnarl elsewhere.

"Ah, here at last, are you?" 

Jinx nearly had a heart attack as she pushed open the black marble doors to the magic room. Inside, on the verge of the blindingly white abyss, the grey Minion was waiting for her coolly. "How in Vessperion´s name did you get here?" 

Gnarl chuckled. "Oh, I have my ways. I've been here for some time, you know. I thought you were fast with those ropes, but…" 

"I was talking to Juno," Jinx spoke with as much dignity as she could muster. 

"Ah… _Juno_." The yellow eyes misted over slightly. "What did she say? Something about me?" 

Jinx shook her head. "No, she only seemed to talk about Sayron," she said vaguely. "I think she only has eyes for his enormous, fantastic power." With a bit of satisfaction she saw how Gnarl´s face clouded over. "She needs to see how much the Minions are worth," she then added. "Who knows, you might take care of that." 

As suddenly as the grin had disappeared, it reappeared again and the advisor's irregular teeth became visible. Gnarl nodded without saying anything. Then he looked back at the glowing white pit in the middle of the magic room. "To business!" 

"To business," Jinx agreed. Her heart jumped. 

"You probably think this is the magic room," Gnarl begun. "Am I right?" 

Jinx nodded uncertainly. "Isn't it?" 

"No. The actual magic room lies down there." 

Jinx stepped onto the bridge leading halfway over the abyss and looked down, without shielding her eyes against the constant, unmoving white light as her retinas told her to. She bent over slightly. 

Gnarl walked around her unnoticed. "It's time for you to undergo an unbelievable honour, Jinx…" 

Jinx narrowed her eyes. She thought she could see something down there… 

"See you in a minute!" With those words Gnarl gave her a shove, and Jinx fell straight down, with milling arms and a stretched cry, into the immeasurable depths and the baffling white light. 

The advisor chuckled to himself. Then his grey cloak seemed to fan out, much further than was logically possible. He, too, jumped into the pit, and before long the light had swallowed him.

During her fall the whiteness around her changed. It remained painfully blinding, but it became less frozen. Whirlings appeared as Jinx fell deeper into the magic room. Patterns, changing as on the Tower Heart shard, the one time she´d seen in the Wasteland. However, the forms were far larger here, and all around her. 

A rising tower, without doubt the same fortress she'd seen in that same Wasteland, but proudly upright and fully intact. Marching armies, walls of spears. Dragons, not just a veined shadow of a wing this time, but whole dragons of white fire, each of them with another collection of spikes, webs and horns. One of them even had three heads. 

Then colour crept in the world of magic around her. At the same moment the forms disappeared, so she entered a storm of bright colours changing more swiftly than in the nacre of an emperor shellfish – emerald green, bloody red, azure blue as the Everlightian sea. Purple… 

Jinx took a blind fling. The purple gust writhed out of her reach, just like in her dream. 

Then, nauseatingly abrupt, her fall came to an end. 

Jinx was trembling from head to toe, both her stomach and her heart lodged in her throat. She was convinced she'd smacked into the bottom, contrary to the information her body gave her. 

She opened her eyes. She was still hanging in the void, but as she outstretched a hand she could feel a smooth surface, two centimetres below her body. She stood up, on a surface differing in nothing from the insane whirlwind of colours around her. 

"Welcome to the magic, Jinx." 

She turned. Her eyes were streaming, but she could see something standing some distance away. It had spoken with Gnarl´s voice. 

However, it only globally looked like the advisor she knew. This Minion – if one could speak of that – had an inky black skin, was far more muscular than any other Minion and had eyes flaming like yellow hellfire. That wasn't the most bizarre, however. This Minion had wings.

Webs of iridescent black skin attached his hands and arms to his legs, and there were even membranes between the creature's elongated fingers. It just shook off a leathery grey cloak and a familiar red scarf. It still had leather straps around its arms. 

"…Gnarl?" 

"It's me. Take a good look at my new form… or should I say old form?" The creature lifted an arm and smiled a sharp-toothed smile as it looked at its claws glistening in the bizarre light.

"The magic is at its very strongest here, but that also means everything must take its true shape. Just look at yourself." 

Jinx did as he said and looked down at her own body. She started. During her fall through the magic, a lot had changed. 

Her skin was of a dark purple now, to start with. A dull gleam lay over her entire body, so dark it seemed black. The callosity on her hands, formed by all her work with ropes, had disappeared and her hands seemed made for finer things, but they also seemed fitted to unsheathe the sword of an Overlord. She was still wearing her own clothes and her ropes were also still curled around her shoulders, lessening the shock. 

"Is this how I really look?" 

"It seems to be so. But almost everyone has such a bizarre true form; you should know how Sayron showed himself in here." 

Something told Jinx she didn't want to know. She shook herself. "Right, what happens now?" 

Gnarl stepped back, supply on his rejuvenated foot claws. "Have a look around. Take it easy. Everything will unfold itself. With a bit of luck you'll get back here soon with total control of your magic, like Sayron back in the day." 

Jinx looked at him for a moment, but then turned and stepped forward uncertainly.  
>Behind her, Gnarl kept looking at her back. There was worry in his eyes, though he'd hidden it well while she was still looking at him – her true form was nothing like he'd expected.<p>

At the start of her walk, nothing changed in the colour storm around her. After a few minutes of walking however, something started to happen. The black form of Gnarl had disappeared for a while then, vanishing behind a curtain of light. 

Blue started dominating here – a pale, icy cyan. It gradually took over all other colours and then started crystallizing in flying particles, like wisps of blue polar fire. Jinx looked up. Above her were waving streams of frigid northern light. 

It was actually colder here, but not like the Nordbergian winter. This was an ethereal cold, and Jinx knew for certain this temperature drop couldn't freeze her toes off – it was more likely her heart muscle would stop altogether. 

"What is your name, child?" The voice was a hiss, matching the temperature perfectly. 

For once, Jinx didn't feel offended by that name. 

Up ahead, the wisps of blue polar fire whirled around each other and melted together. A form rose, of the same icy colour as the entire surroundings. It was a woman, with short, wild hair floating around her head, long flowing fabrics falling down from her belt, and a huge jagged sword in her right hand. She wore a crowned helmet exposing her face, so her eyes sparked into Jinx´ as the iciest stars of a Nordbergian winter night. 

"My name is Jinx of the Netherworld," Jinx spoke with as steady a voice as she could manage. "I'm looking for my own magic." 

"They all are," the woman laughed. "But I am not what you seek. I do not belong to you. I am the magic of Synn of the North." 

_Synn!_ Jinx gasped. Synn of the North had been an Overlady of long ago, one of the three Darklords of old. She´d been a member of an elven mountain tribe, but after an uncertain event only known to the Darklords themselves she'd turned to the shadows and murdered her entire tribe. Then she'd joined the other two and traced a line of blood over the world that still had no equal. 

Jinx sunk to her knees trembling. She almost had another heart attack as she felt an icy hand around her arm. She looked up, straight into the woman's eyes. 

"Stand up, foolish girl! Do not bow to me. I am not the Darklord of the old days, merely her magic. An echo, a mirror image. Save your bowing for the real Synn of the North, if you ever meet her." Synn´s magic yanked her up and Jinx staggered back. "Go back. Disappear from my domain. You do not belong here. Seek further and find your own magic, wherever it may be." 

Jinx nodded silently, let her eyes slide over the form of the legendary ruler one more time and then turned, to run back over the ethereal surface, in the direction she'd come from.

It didn't take long before she could see the black shape of Gnarl again. The Minion nodded at her. "What did you find?" 

"Synn of the North," she panted. "Gnarl! Is everyone here?" 

"The magic of all former Overlords? Probably," he nodded. "That's why this is only allowed to the Overlord himself, in normal cases. It's a huge honour, didn't I tell you?" 

"Thank you," the muttered. "I value it a lot more now." 

"Your time's up, you know." 

"What?"  
>Gnarl looked up. "If you stay here for too long you're at risk of getting an overdose of magic. Maybe you'll come back with the magical disease and drool glowing blue holes in the carpet. Can't have that." <p>

Jinx felt her heart sink with disappointment. "When do I come back?" 

"As soon as possible…" The Minion grabbed her arm and spread his own arms, so the iridescent black membrane became spanned. A gust of sudden, probably magical wind and a heartbeat later they were flying back up to the real world.

It felt remarkably freeing to just sail along Everlight´s shores, instead of ploughing through the dark jungles behind those beaches with a flashing blade for every third step. 

Sayron stood at the wheel with one hand and enjoyed the feeling he got when things ended. His task on Everlight was completed. The only thing left for him was to finish off the fled elven slaves from Ignavopolis, but he'd do that later. What mattered now was speed, and the seven red sails aided him sufficiently in that. The _Shadow Bringer_ was at least three times as fast as that piece of firewood from Nordberg with which he'd reached the island. That ship had been a fishing boat, not at all meant for the open sea. This ship, however, had already made the journey once. 

He planned to sail around the south of the sacred island, back to the Reef Gates. If he strained his eyes he could see the irregular shapes of the reefs behind the sea mist, everywhere on the horizon. There was only one passage, and that lay on the west side. Then, as they'd picked up Jinx, they'd sail back east and to the Empire. 

Closer than the reefs lay a second, gigantic island. Sayron knew this was called Little Everlight, probably broken off the larger part. Unoriginal, but the elves probably had a nicer name for it – which he didn't want to know. 

He turned to Everlight itself. There, above the trees, rose insanely jagged peaks. The tsingy nearby the spider temple. Sayron smiled at the memory of the time he'd seen those rock peaks for the first time and promptly turned around to march into the opposite direction.  
>The Overlord raised a hand and let the lightning flash down. Then his magic had been much weaker. Training in the magic room, and getting to know his powers better, had helped him a whole lot. He wondered how Jinx would return. Stronger? More useful? Hopefully her head wouldn't get too big. <p>

Sayron blinked. No, Jinx was loyal to him, a horde leader. She had a high status, but it was the status of a high-ranking Minion, nothing more. A girl that had come washing up like a dead rat and had even been stopped by a wound of a Kiret spear in the beginning would never be more than that.

Jinx kept bugging Gnarl so badly the advisor jumped back into the magical abyss with her that very same day. This time Jinx controlled her fall, and speared into the whiteness with her feet forward. She even expected the landing once the colours started appearing. 

"Pick another direction," the now black Minion advised. "Synn won't like it if you bother her for a second time." 

"How do I know where I've already been?" 

"You'll know. You just feel it. Follow your own magical compass." 

Jinx looked around and chose a random direction that felt good for her. She hoped she wouldn't bump into Synn again. 

"Try not to attract anything carnivorous," Gnarl called after her. "I might not be able to ascend fast enough." His chuckling followed her for a long time. 

It took longer than the previous time before one colour started dominating the others, like the entity that resided here rather remained hidden. This time it was a very dark green getting the upper hand. Jinx stiffened. Again, it wasn't her own magic, but she kept walking nonetheless. She was very curious who she'd meet this time. 

Ahead, some particles of the magic solidified and became black. They also changed form, until they resembled small circling pieces of basalt, exactly like the huge chunks of rock tumbling around the Netherworld Tower itself. They kept flying around as a figure rose up in their midst, gleaming in a green haze, with inky black eyes. 

It was a large, muscular man in seemingly steel armour with black details, maybe obsidian. In his right hand he carried an enormous warhammer. 

"Greetings," his voice sounded. "Speak up, what's your name?" 

"Jinx of the Netherworld," Jinx answered again. "And yours?" 

The man uttered a rumbling laugh. "Guts. I have no name, as you know very well. The name of my bearer was Atrej." 

A second Darklord. Jinx´ eyes gleamed as she bowed to the Overlord. "Do you know where I can find my own magic?" 

"Inside this room," was Atrej´s answer. "If you haven't found yourself yet, you didn't look good enough." His black eyes narrowed. "You haven't done so anyway." 

Jinx blinked. "What do you mean?" 

"That skin? The only miracle here is that you've come down only now. I wish you the best of luck in your quest." The little chunks of basalt started dispersing. "Send my regards to the green Minions, will you…" 

Jinx nodded silently and only turned as the green glow had also vanished. Synn, Atrej. Who would be next? She shivered and walked back to Gnarl. She knew this would be the last time she entered the room today.

"His regards to the green Minions?" Gnarl laughed as they were back on the bridge in the Tower. "Atrej? Funny guy. He practically was one himself. So even his magic still feels connected to them. Interesting." 

"You remember them, don't you? The Darklords?" 

"I've fought side by side with them, yes." 

"Wow," Jinx whispered. "That's insane." 

"Quite. That peak, Dragonspire? It took us days to climb it." 

"You fought in the battle for Dragonspire!" 

"Of course. I can still hear the creaking of my poor knees as I arrived before their gates. And I _was_ considerably younger back then." 

Jinx blinked. "Didn't you fly?" 

Gnarl looked back at her, a gleam in his now dimmed, old eyes. "I can't just let those wings flop out, you know. Only on… special occasions." The advisor grimaced and remembered the shards of a magnificent stained glass window, tumbling behind him in a four kilometre dive to solid ground. "By the way, I took my true shape only a couple of times," Gnarl said quickly. 

Jinx walked back to the Overlord's chambers with him. "You are no brown Minion at all. Never were either." 

"I'm grey. An age like mine has the habit of doing that to you." 

"You belong to neither of the clans. Mortis? He spoke of his old horde leader. Zap called you the Hiveless One." 

"Better not stick your nose into business that can bite it off," Gnarl countered.

Little Everlight disappeared behind the high cliffs of the larger island later that day. The _Shadow Bringer_ sailed out of the small strait between the islands and came into more open waters. 

Sayron looked at a couple of greens on the lower deck, busy pulling pieces of translucent, scaly skin off their arms and shoulders with their nails and sharp teeth. The Minions were all gradually shedding a layer of skin, probably because of the radiation of the Sentinels they´d had cast over them a few days back at the fortress. 

The Overlord just started to regret the fact Gnarl was still busy in the magic room as the advisor's voice suddenly bombarded his ears. 

"Good evening, Master!" 

"Gnarl," the Overlord nodded. "And? How's she doing?" 

Gnarl coughed. "Oh, fine." Jinx just landed in front of the throne room entrance and was clearly listening. "She hasn't found her magic yet, but she starts to understand how the room works." 

"Who did she meet?" the Overlord asked curiously. 

"Lady Synn and Lord Atrej." Gnarl just hoped Sayron wouldn't ask about Jinx´ true form. He might not be able to lie. 

Sayron opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment there was a loud bump and a shock coursed through the _Shadow Bringer_. Something had rammed the ship. 

The Overlord drew his sword at once, but he didn't let go of the wheel. He whistled. The first Minion who came running was Clout, and Sayron handed over the wheel to him to go and watch at the rail. Instantly something rammed the ship from the other side. As the Overlord bent over the water something horrible was staring up at him, a head that was all mouth, filled with needle-sharp teeth. Small black fish eyes stood above it, and long fins fanned out on both sides. 

Then it was gone and the prow creaked under a new thump. An enormous splash made him spin around. 

Before their bowsprit a gigantic creature jumped out of the sea, fishlike and with a long, muscular tail covered in blue-green scales. The scales continued on the upper body, but two stubby arms with webbed, rudimentary hands betrayed what this creature really was. 

"A mermaid, Sire! A variant of the inner sea! We've been lucky we didn't run into those with the _Horizonbreaker!_" 

Sayron stared at sea and followed the creature. It swam around the ship with alarming speed. "Can it break through the prow?" 

"I don't know, Sire. Killing it would be a good idea if possible." 

A new thud, but the wood didn't give out yet. "As soon as possible," Gnarl added. 

"Minions!" 

Various horde members came running for him, but not all the way to the rail. Mainly Kniff stayed well away from the water – he knew better than anyone what the smaller mermaids from the reefs could do, and this one was far bigger. 

"Taunt it. Try to get it on deck," the Overlord spoke hurriedly. "Damage to the rail is no problem, as long as the prow stays intact." He quickly looked back – somewhere in the west lay the wreck of his last ship, the _Horizonbreaker_. He already started to get attached to the _Shadow Bringer_ and wasn't planning to let this ship go down as well. 

As the mermaid swam into the ship for the fourth time Scabies jumped over the rail in a fit of insane recklessness and hung from it by his feet. He yelled at the water and slashed down with one of his swords. 

The mermaid turned away from the prow and jumped up. Minc just managed to pull the pirate back by his ankles before the gigantic maw closed itself around his shoulders. Scabies thudded to the deck on his back and looked up into the eyes of the Minion behind him. That was Stripe. 

The former horde leader slapped the pirate in the face, hard. "Idiot," he growled. "Minions don't do suicide."  
>Scabies´ ears fell down limply beneath his bandana. "Sorry." <p>

"Make yourself useful," his bigger clan member snarled with a gesture to the rail, where the water was spraying onto the deck with the violence with which the mermaid threw herself onto one spot in the prow. 

Minc hung half over the rail, his bow at the ready. He fired, but the arrow splashed into the waves uselessly. He reached back into his makeshift quiver. He'd only managed to save five arrows after the battle for Ignavopolis. 

Next to him, another Minion suddenly fell over the rail. The mermaid turned her head abruptly and jumped out of sea in a fountain of salt water, to snap her jaws shut around him. A last yell and the Minion was gone. 

Minc looked around him with wide eyes. Then he caught a gust of a terrible smell. The stench of a green. 

A giggle. On his left Rampus tumbled into sea. 

The Minion with the bow ignored the hammering of his heart and aimed without thinking of anything else, such as the fact he might be next to be kicked into the ocean without any reason. He let his arrow fly. Straight into the black, soulless fish eye of the mermaid rising from the water to catch Rampus. 

The jaws snapped shut and Rampus´ body was crushed with a terrible crack, but from between those teeth a rattling howl rose up, and the mermaid disappeared in a maelstrom of foam, writhing so wildly the ship swayed to and fro. Minc hung over slightly further and spanned a new arrow, but the fish creature didn't return. No new thud against the prow came, and gradually the water, too, calmed down. The creature was gone. 

A short giggle made the Minion turn. The scratch marks of every time three claws worked their way up along one of the masts. A moment later Stabbit materialized atop a high spar.  
>Minc nodded to himself. He'd have to keep an eye on that unpredictable maniac.<p>

After a restless night during which she kept waking up convinced of the fact her entire skin was once again as purple as in the magic room, Jinx rolled over on the blanket in her barrack in the unholy early morning. She could wake up this early, for Kniff was sailing with the _Shadow Bringer_ and wouldn't get one of his morning tempers if she did. She stood up, grabbed her boots and bandana, walked to the door of their humble home and flung her rope around the small wooden pole she'd hammered into the other edge of the abyss long, long ago. 

On the floating rock she bent over so far she lay almost flat on the polished basalt. The rock soared to the Tower like a comet and docked. Jinx didn't take time to go into the throne room, but just waved to Gnarl – the advisor never seemed to sleep and was already plotting out new routes on a large world map, and probably assault plans for Arcadiopolis itself too – and then climbed up the outer wall of the Tower. 

She knew Gnarl would arrive in the magic room before she did, and indeed, as she pushed open the black marble doors he was already there, his grey-cloaked back to her, looking into the abyss. 

Jinx hesitated, thinking of kicking him good to see if he could show his wings in here as well. She was convinced of the fact he flew up every time, so he could arrive before she did. But in his old, grey form Gnarl didn't have any trace of membranes between his stiff, old limbs. She didn't ask. Just like in the first days she still didn't doubt the fact the advisor, despite his age, could severely harm her if he wanted to. 

Gnarl turned. "Are you ready? Do you think you can find yourself this time?" 

"Not more or less than the two previous visits," Jinx answered. 

"Good enough." He outstretched a grey hand with long fingers. "Ladies first." 

_So I won't see how you can also arrive down there before I do,_ Jinx thought. Still she stepped past him and tumbled into the white light.

"You know how it works," she heard as she'd scrambled back to her feet on the whirling surface of the actual magic room. She turned, to see the bizarre true form of the old advisor. He outstretched his arms backwards and stretched the magnificent, iridescent black membrane, like he was about to fly up any moment. Intricate patterns, black on black, glistened in the multicoloured light. 

"I hope so," Jinx answered. Then she turned away from him and started walking. 

This time she didn't just choose a direction, but followed the colours. Though they danced around her like a lunatic rainbow she still tried to focus on purple, the bright purple she knew her own magic would be made of. She didn't seem to succeed. The purple floating just in front of her one moment was shooting to her left the next and then lay right behind her. Still it started dominating eventually. However, it wasn't the pure purple she was looking for. This purple was dark, almost black. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing, Jinx thought. Her own skin had the exact same colour. 

As the colour started swallowing everything like dark clouds, however, she knew this was not her magic. Before she knew it she was standing in the middle of a whirlwind of a strange, fearsome purple, even with flashes of black woven through it. The temperature rose and the air around her seemed to press together, sultry like before a thunderstorm in the real world. 

Then a lightning bolt struck right in front of her, emanating an unholy, dark light.  
>Before her eyes the form of a man with long, pale hair rose up. In his right hand he carried a strange sword, black even through the dark purple haze and slightly iridescent, like Gnarl's wings. He wore a magnificent helmet shaped like a horned dragon's head. Jinx knew that helmet – she'd touched it in the room where the old armour of the Overlords lay. <p>

She sunk to one knee, trembling. "You're Lord Vergal. The Dragon's Son." 

"Vergal Garghan," it sounded with a voice like honey. "That is my bearer's name." 

"I'm sorry I disturbed your slumber," Jinx stammered. "I'm searching for my own magic." 

"You… You have the feel of Minions about you." There was slight surprise in the voice. 

"I'm a horde leader, Lord." This magic didn't seem to mind being addressed as its bearer himself. Jinx felt strangely light as she realized she was almost talking to Lord Vergal Garghan himself, the third but also the very first of the Darklords. She had hoped and feared to meet him. 

"A human horde leader? Interesting," the legendary Overlord's voice resounded. "Who is the current Master of this Tower?" 

Jinx swallowed. "Lord Sayron, son of Vessperion." 

"Ah, Vessperion. Good man, judging by his magic." Vergal´s magic started paling without warning. "Now, leave me. There is no more time to be floating in here. I have business to attend to with my bearer." 

The shape of the magic disappeared, and a heartbeat later his purple clouds, too, faded away. Jinx was surrounded by the colour storm again. She slowly rose from her kneeling position and swallowed, still trembling. 

Business with his bearer? 

Wasn´t Vergal long dead? It had to be at least a thousand years ago the Darklords had ruled the world…

That evening Minc climbed up to the crow's nest, to Kniff, with a piece of loose sail cloth from the hold. The Minion permanently taking the task of lookout also slept there, in an improvised hammock, and had done so since his days on the Nordbergian ship and the _Horizonbreaker_. He was even lying in it right now. 

Kniff averted his eyes from the sun setting behind Everlight´s cliffs and looked at his clan member questioningly. Minc looked around carefully and then back to the other Minion.

"Don't trust it." 

"What not?" 

"The greens." 

Kniff put up his ears, in an even more surprised gesture. "What?" 

Minc narrowed his eyes. "Didn't look when mermaid attacked? Drozz and Rampus fell into sea." 

"Because of thumping against ship." 

"No. Heard giggle." 

Kniff widened his eyes. "…Stabbit? No!" 

"Slept below deck last night. Giggled whole night. Tired of it. Don't feel like getting throat slit when sleeping." Minc lowered his ears in apology. "Don't mind?" 

"Course not. Sleep here." Kniff outstretched an arm in invitation, and Minc tied his sail cloth next to the first hammock. 

"Thanks."

"How are you coming along?" Velvet asked worriedly as her daughter came flying to the Tower with the floating rock the next day. She was already waiting on the platform, a rare event considering she rarely left her own chambers. Those were big enough, after all, and Velvet had her own business to attend to – she'd taken all of the bizarre objects from her Nordbergian home with her. 

Jinx jumped onto the platform. "Still no result," she spoke in apology. 

"Don't be disappointed. You're not doing it for me." The look in Velvet's eyes said something else. 

"I've met three powerful Overlords… maybe it's a matter of time now." 

"Good luck, dear. You don't have much time left," Velvet warned.

"Now you've met all three Darklords," Gnarl warned her when they were standing in the magic room. "You'll do well not to meet them again." 

"I know," Jinx nodded nervously. "I'd rather not see Synn and Vergal again. And I don't want to invoke Atrej´s irritation either." 

Gnarl slightly lowered his head and looked at her with a grin. "You need to stop fooling around. You're not trying hard enough." 

Jinx huffed in incense. "Watch out, you." 

"You watch out. You don't know what I can do to you in this form." 

"Oh, gods." Jinx demonstratively turned and walked into the storm for the fourth time. _This time. This time for sure._

She didn't follow the colours again. She hadn't found Vergal´s purple by following the pure violet, so this time she chose a random direction again and hoped her path wouldn't lead her to a Darklord. 

It took a long while before one colour started to dominate the others, even longer than with Atrej. But when it started, it was the most eye-catching change of all. 

Around her, the world went blood-red. The temperature rose noticeably with every next step, until Jinx felt like she was standing inside the lava pits at the forge. She took off her bandana and wiped over her burning forehead. 

Then fire started to leak from the bottom of the magic room. A rough circle of flames surrounded her, meters across. Jinx stopped walking. 

"Who's there?" she asked uncertainly. Which hellish ruler could have possessed this magic?

She wasn't sure whether she wanted to know, but she couldn't get away without burning alive in the circle of fire. 

Then a gigantic jet of flame sprayed up in the middle of the circle and a shape took form. It was made of pure fire, but Jinx recognized a three-pronged helmet, armour resembling Sayron´s and a cloak that fluttered in its own hot air currents. A flaming axe was laid over the broad shoulder, an experienced move she knew of the current Overlord. 

"I might be asking you the same," a voice sizzled. 

Jinx widened her eyes. "M-my name is Jinx," she stammered. "Are you…" 

Eyes, the brightest flames of all, stared into hers with a piercing, way too familiar expression in them. "My name, or at least the name of my bearer, is Lord Vessperion, ruler of the Five Abysses and slayer of the Forgotten God." The magical mirror image slightly bowed his helmeted head. "My bearer feels he recognizes you." 

Jinx´ heart was hammering like crazy. This was the magic of her uncle, Sayron´s father. And the magic had a connection with its bearer, far away in the underworld. "I'm the daughter of Velvet, Rose's sister," she managed to utter. 

"Ah, Velvet's daughter. Yes, now I remember…" Vessperion´s magic looked over Jinx´ head. "You're looking for your own magic, aren't you? Just like my son." 

Jinx´ breath faltered. Was the former Overlord speaking through his magic now? It seemed like it, because Sayron was not the son of a magical mirror image. "Yes," she spoke. "Yes, I'm looking for my own magic." She scraped her courage together. "Do you know where I can find… her?" 

Vessperion lowered his flaming gaze, straight into his niece's eyes. "Yes," he then spoke. "I do know that. Follow me." 

The circle of flame was extinguished and the redness faded away, so Jinx was back in the madness of every colour she could think of. However, there was a single flame still burning, right in front of her. "Follow me," her uncle's voice sizzled again. Then the flame shot away.  
>Jinx ran after it. Finally! Finally she'd find what she was looking for! She shot through the colour storm, paying no attention to the sudden flashes of a dominating sky blue, sulfury yellow, green. Gusts of colour whirled out of her reach. Then she saw something black. <p>

"Gnarl! Move!" 

The Minion dove out of the flame's way just in time. Jinx rocketed after it, determined not to lose Vessperion. She cast off her ropes in a quick decision. "Take good care of them! I want them back undamaged!" 

She couldn't hear Gnarl's answer because of the roaring of the flame. She bent over slightly while running, her fists clenched and straight in the fire's wake. Her eyes were burning.  
>Light blue started dominating, and for a moment Jinx thought she saw northern lights dancing, far above. Then it faded and she ran into a world that was filled with a bright, lively purple. <p>

Purple! It slid around her in patterns changing more swiftly than the wind itself. It became brighter still as Jinx ran on. Her magic was very close… 

The flame was still shooting ahead, and though Jinx felt a stabbing pain in her sides she still ran after it. "I'm going to find you," she growled. "I will this time. This time for sure. You've escaped me once, but this time I'll have total control!" 

Vessperion´s flame extinguished. 

"Are you absolutely sure?" 

Jinx crossed her feet on the smooth surface and slid to a standstill. The purple had also come to a halt and whirled around her in gleaming patterns. A couple of lights, with long tails resembling those of comets, drifted around each other. A form rose. 

The form was Jinx. 

The girl was panting and her eyes were wide as she stared at her own mirror image – the image of her magic. She was of the same height, wore the same clothes and had the same stubborn expression of which Jinx realized only now she had it on her own face most of the time. There were, however, some fundamental differences. Her magic still held the ropes Jinx had just dropped with Gnarl, and she was made of purple light. Her eyes were radiating with a blinding violet and lacked pupils. 

Jinx´ magic folded her arms and grinned. "Finally here, are you? Ready to claim me, little girl?" 

"Watch your tongue, you," the real Jinx huffed, catching her breath. She hesitated, and then outstretched a hand. "What happens now?" 

The purple form stepped forward. "Now, everything begins." The magic took the waiting hand and turned itself into Jinx´ body. 

A storm of purple comets got up and twisted itself around Jinx like an insane tornado. Involuntarily she spread her arms and threw back her head. In each of her hands, an orb of purple fire appeared. 

Then it was over, just as suddenly as it had begun. Jinx fell down and instantly went through her knees, her head on her chest and completely out of breath. She slowly brought a hand in front of her face. Before she could even blink, a large, gleaming purple flame was flickering between her fingers. 

She jumped up and spun around, so her magic traced a gleaming trail through the air. The purple patterns in the magic room had disappeared. Jinx´ magic was entirely inside her own body. 

The horde leader danced through the colour storm and cheered in joy.

"Gnarl! _Gnarl!_" 

The black Minion had already turned to her and his yellow eyes burned through the colour storm. "Did you find her?" 

"Yes!" Jinx skidded to a halt before him, raised a hand and let the purple comet ignite itself. She laughed wildly. "I feel like Sayron!" She lobbed the purple light straight up and watched it explode with a monstrous grin. "Never thought I'd get this back!" 

"I have to disappoint you. The magic is at its strongest here, as I said. In the real world you have a lot left to learn. But you can easily do so on the Master's flag ship…" Gnarl chuckled as he saw Jinx´ face. "No worry. The Master is still growing as well. Here in the magic room he resembled Lord Vergal, at the peak of his might. He's getting closer to that in the real world every day. You'll grow as well." 

Jinx took up her ropes. "Take me up. I want to see it."

As they were back on the bridge in the private quarters, and Gnarl was his grey old self once more, Jinx raised a hand again. Here the purple comet was a small star, still capable of wrecking the carved webs of a blue Minion head on the wall as she threw it. She ignored the incensed looks of the Minions close by and strained herself. This time the spark was bigger already. 

"I'll learn," she said determinedly. She tiredly blinked her eyes. 

"Not too often," Gnarl warned. "However funny it might be, especially in the beginning the magic can claim so much of your energy you'll fall flat on your face of exhaustion in the middle of a siege. I advise to leave it alone for some time." 

"Maybe." 

Gnarl looked at her sideways. "You know what day it is, don't you? To the throne room with you. You're just in time with finishing this business." 

Jinx brightened up instantly. "Today?" 

"Go and join your horde, missy!"

**General: I've managed to evade those treehugging elves for now. Plus as a bonus I've been in contact with Velvet. When she wiped my memory a while ago it formed a connection. She's been providing me with updates but I don't trust her enough to explain the situation here in Nordberg.**

**Occasionally I signal the Minions caged up here to remind them they've got support, sadly one unarmed half frozen human is not going to be much against elf warriors. But don't worry, we'll kill those elves and reclaim this town for the Master or my name isn't General Maraxus Herbison. Anyway, please review people.**


	17. New Horizons Part 2

**Gnarl: It appears Jinx is far more intriguing than I originally thought. That blasted General still hasn't got back from Nordberg so once again I have to do this introduction, this story and Jinx belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart, now if you'll excuse me, I think I'll check on Juno.**

New Horizons Part 2

Lord Sayron shielded his eyes as he looked straight into the high sun. Familiar doors of reef stone, rising up a hundred and fifty meters above water level, lay ahead of the _Shadow Bringer_´s prow. 

A while later, the large ship sailed between them and the Overlord could see the four Key Stones again, glowing with their own colours like nothing had changed since the moment, so long ago, they'd opened the gates for him. Events that had caused the remains of the _Horizonbreaker_, probably on the bottom of the ocean now, to still be damaged, the scratches of the rough stone doors still etched in the wood. 

He looked up at the platform where the green Stone was casting its light over the bay, high above him on his right. Maybe Morvan´s body was still lying there, the elven guardian of that stone. Jinx had saved his hide up there, and he had thanked her by brainwashing her. Fortunately it hadn't succeeded. A voluntary warrior was of far more use than a brainless slave. 

Why didn't he succeed? He still didn't know. 

The green Minions, the last flaps of loose skin still on their backs, looked around alertly. After this, they would have really left Everlight for the first time, for the first time since their ancestors made the journey after Vessperion´s fall. Stabbit seemed to be standing slightly apart from the rest, and was constantly vibrating between visible and invisible as well. Not a single other Minion seemed to want to get close to him, especially not the two residing in the crow's nest. 

The _Shadow Bringer_ had more difficulties getting through the reef than the two other ships, probably because the Empire hadn't known of the existence of this atoll and hadn't built the ships for it either. Luckily not a single mermaid dared show herself again, very fortunate as the reef mermaids were proven to be poisonous. Kniff shivered as they passed the place where he and Jinx had fallen into the water. He looked up from the crow's nest and could just see the top of the temple on the rocks, rising above the trees. Where he'd bowed for Jinx… 

Ahead of them, a blue flash rose to the sky. Something, or someone, had used the Tower Gate of the reefs. Kniff´s eyes lit up. He nudged Minc, next to him in the crow's nest. "Jinxie´s back!" 

Minc nodded and followed the rising flash with his eyes. "You think we have magical leader?" 

Kniff didn´t answer. He felt like he'd done during his first sea journey, when he'd constantly been asking himself how he'd see her back. He suddenly grinned. "Yea," he said. "Very magical."

Jinx stepped out of the gate and looked around. A grin was plastered across her face. There was the very first tree she'd ever tested her ropes on. And the stream where she'd seen the Nordbergian ship's white sail disappear. She turned a slow circle. And there was the open sea beyond the reefs. 

Open sea! Never had she sailed the real ocean. She'd been raised in a river delta and her journey over the shallow Everlightian inner sea had been her first acquaintance, but she knew the open sea was something else. There awaited unpredictable winds, sunken civilizations, sea monsters and deserted islands. Open sea… She wondered if she had pirate blood, she was that happy with the prospect. 

And then there was a glimpse of red between the green. A creaking of wood, ropes and seven red sails reached her ears, and above it all were the Minion voices. 

The crow's nest rose above the canopy. She held a hand above her eyes and grinned. Kniff was waving at her wildly. She raised a hand. "Ahoy!" 

"Come aboard," Sayron´s voice thundered. "We head out!" 

"This time," she whispered. "This time I get invited." She enjoyed it again. Then the arcanium spikes hit the wood of the prow with hard raps and Jinx jumped into the water, to swiftly haul herself up along her ropes. As if she was climbing over the Tower's prow balcony she hauled herself over the rail and then she was aboard, on the weathered boards of the deck. The ship sailed on and Jinx felt the wind pull on. The loose ends of the ropes she was now rolling in were swaying gently. 

Then the prow worked its way through the last mangroves of the reef. The first sails caught the wind again blowing free. At the bowsprit Scabies raised a sword and cheered. 

One by one all their sails filled with sea wind, and the ship gained speed. The _Shadow Bringer_ leapt forward, like the ship couldn't wait to return to her own harbours either. 

"Arcadiopolis! Here we come!" 

Jinx felt a heavy hand on her shoulder and abruptly turned, as her broad grin diminished. Sayron was standing right in front of her. 

"Do you have your magic?" 

Jinx nodded and outstretched a hand, the palm up. She blinked her eyes, and there was a spark, small, even smaller than in the Netherworld, but of a purple almost hurting her eyes. "I have it. I'm planning to get it as strong as in the magic room before we dock in the Empire." 

"That's the spirit. I'm going to help you with that." It was a conclusion, not an offer.  
>Jinx nodded again. She could see in the Overlord's flaming eyes she was a lot more than when they'd sailed past here for the first time. He wouldn't dare brainwash her again now. <p>

"Thank you, Lord!"

In the Netherworld Crawler looked out over the sea of vines above the green Hive, satisfied. Barely a week before he'd lowered himself out of it on a thread of black silk, and already he had a task he never wanted to drop again. It had everything to do with silk, but white this time. 

The vineweb had become a true web, but now of spider silk. And he was the one with the chief responsibility over the mounts of his own clan. 

Not all spiders of Everlight had been brought over, of course. That'd have been impossible, there were way too many and there would always be a large colony in the rocks around the temple lake, and probably even more on the rest of the island. But the group that was brought here and was now under his care, would be especially tended to by his clan… maybe with very interesting results.  
>The black arthropods were scrambling around between the vines, constructing webs and hunting the small species of vermin that had thought they'd be safe here. Some even seemed to be building nests. <p>

Crawler contently stroked the vine he was grasping for support and strolled through the stalks, inspecting some spiders as he went. He hoped they'd fully adapt to the Minions – the upperworld horde had ridden them without too much trouble, but the newborns now training with them experienced some difficulty with the spiders that didn't keep their silk to themselves or snapped out to their riders with strong mandibles. They'd continue to make the mounts get used to their riders until they could shoot through the Netherworld with more agility than the reds – only then Crawler would be truly satisfied. He remembered what Ramul had said to him before the absolute spider expert had departed to the upper world for some months. "Take care of them. Make them strong, make them agile. Counting on you." He'd said this with his claw knives right under Crawler´s chin. Then he'd patted his spider's head for the last time and had left. The spider even had a name – Letho. Crawler didn't dare guess what would become of him if he'd disappoint the upperworld fighter, one of the four elders even. 

They'd become an army that could compete with the wolf riders. He was sure of it.

"The first thing you need to know it that magic doesn't grow by itself," Sayron grinned in the shadows of his helmet. "You need to work for it." 

"Did you?" Jinx wondered. "You were flinging pure lightning around when I was running after you clad in sealskin and fainting with the smallest wound." 

"My Minions had an… envoy of my magic with them when they found me in Nordberg," Sayron admitted. "They found me using it, too. I have had quite a larger amount of time to practice than you will have, but to practice, I had." 

"Ah. So I have thirteen years of experience to catch up with." 

"That depends on how hard you train." Sayron raised a hand. "Let's begin." The blue lightning came to life with a crack. 

Jinx uncertainly raised her own hand and formed her small star. She pushed as hard as she could, but the magic didn't even fill the palm of her hand. She noticed all too well how Sayron´s eyes rippled with a silent smile. He was no respecting teacher.

The lightning outstretched a jolting tentacle to Jinx´ hand. She wanted to pull back, all too familiar with the consequences of Sayron´s magic, but stopped as she saw her star reacting. She realized the two kinds of magic were testing each other, and could almost see the two figures in the magic room circling one another. 

The lightning backed away slightly, and the star grew, as if it was pulled on. Instantly Jinx stepped to the right, and before she knew it she and Sayron were tangled up in a fight – though it was no fight full of the clash of weaponry and swift wounds, but one of spraying sparks and bolts of lightning. She dived to the side as the lightning was flung to her and blocked a second bolt in a reflex – to her surprise it ricocheted off the minuscule star in her hand. The sparks that reached their target from her side burned themselves into Sayron´s skin and through his sash. It hurt, she could see that, and it elated her – even though she knew it would take a while before she could make a complete Eradicator disappear save his breastplate.

She had had help back then. And to be frank she knew from whom. There was something very strange about the Minions with the black-lined eyes.

The short distraction that thought gave her made that one of Sayron´s bolts suddenly reached its target, and Jinx stiffened completely, absorbed in an unbearable, crackling pain. She couldn't fall, she seemed nailed to the deck. Blue lightning writhed over her skin.

Then, suddenly, it was over and she fell to her hands and knees. Her star faded – the lightning had taken all of her energy.

"Enough for today. You'll make your progress."

Heavy footsteps told her Sayron was walking past her. It took a long while before she could stand up again.

Later…

Stabbit lay curled in a tangle of ropes below deck. His claws stuck out of his improvised sleeping place and his glowing eyes were half opened. His eyes shot over the rest of the horde, the Minions that had fabricated makeshift beds of their own, and of which some were even asleep. The main part, however, was staring at the ceiling – or him.

They knew why Minc hadn't slept below deck for a week already. They were bothered by the same.

Him.

Almost, the crow's nest had been festooned with hammocks, and probably the main mast as well. Sayron had caught a group of Minions about to rip the main sail apart to do that, however, and forbidden them. So everyone save the two browns was still sleeping here. Jinx had a place in the first mate's cabin, where she could still hear what was happening below deck – but she would probably not hear too much tonight, because she had been sleeping unbelievably deep all week, tired of her tasks on board. The horde leader was now responsible for the raising and securing of all seven sails, aside from her trainings with Sayron. She was also the one that had had to repair them as Sayron had noticed the Minions had torn them apart.

Stabbit´s eyes lingered on the ceiling above which the horde leader slept. If only he could climb up there. He missed his spider. His spider, with which he'd sped through the entire city of fat people without effort, clawing and biting off body parts to the left and right… he licked over his canines and almost tasted the delicious blood again.

He didn't understand Fever at all. What fun was there in just destroying? Fear, chaos and madness, that was what it was all about, wasn't it? Explosions were a waste of perfect amusement…

He missed his amusement even more than he missed his spider.

It had been fun to kick the two browns overboard. Their screams and the cracking noises as they broke between the jaws of the mermaid were still resounding in his frayed ears. But that was more than a week ago already.

He missed his amusement.

A heartbeat later there was nobody lying in the tangle of ropes.

The horde members who were still awake looked around them nervously. Simmer and Sear, two reds, perked their ears alertly – they were both very wary of this green Minion.

Then something invisible giggled between them.

Fever shot upright against the wall in the back of the room. "Stabbit…!"

Jinx only jolted awake as there already was a brown Minion standing next to her hammock and almost turning it upside down. "Manky?" she muttered sleepily. "What time is it?" The Minion's ears were laid flat against the back of his head, she noticed. That made her a little more alert already. "Manky, what's going on?"

"Acrid, Sear, Raw," the Minion spoke quickly. He looked over his shoulder. "Come on!" He pulled her out, to the deck, and then down to below it. Now she could also hear the noises of a fight. Why those hadn't woken her was a mystery to her.

"What's going on here?" she yelled, looking out over the chaos. Browns, reds and greens were seemingly hacking around blindly, to the empty air and each other. Or, no; there were mainly browns and reds – the greens had circled a piece of emptiness and only a few were fighting the other two clans who were seemingly in total panic. Also – her heart hammered faster – quite a few dead Minions were lying on the floor, among whom Acrid, Sear and Raw as Manky had said. They had the marks of very sharp teeth in their necks and long, deep wounds over their entire bodies. Sear was missing an arm. The limb lay against a wall some distance away and its light was still fading.  
>Jagged, part of the circle holding back something invisible, looked back at Jinx briefly. His eyes were widened. "Jinx!"<p>

She ran to the circle. A stench, even worse than that of the rest of the greens, slapped her in the face. "What is going on here?"

"Stabbit…"

She elbowed herself through the circle, unfurled her ropes and wanted to throw herself to the spot she thought the Minion to be, but someone beat her to it. Fever had come after her immediately as she broke the circle. He stepped to one point with great certainty and a second later Stabbit became visible. Glowing hands grabbed the green Minion´s arms. He was covered in the blood of other Minions. And now he was visible he was also giggling, despite the pain Fever had to be causing him.

A clawed hand was raised and Stabbit licked the blood off his nails.

"That why Kniff and Minc sleep in crow's nest," a brown behind her muttered. "Completely insane!" 

Jinx had to agree with him. Stabbit was completely insane. She stepped forward, grabbed the green Minion at the throat and lifted him, out of Fever's grip. "What do you think you're doing?" she growled, her face inches from his.

Stabbit chuckled and breathed out good and proper. Jinx had to turn her face away and coughed chokingly as the stench became too much for her. She didn't let go, however. "You… need to have… a good fight with your leader," she uttered. "Jagged, teach him a lesson, will you. If you want my advice… he's valuable, he fights like a lunatic and doesn't even know pain, but he's not exactly trustworthy and obeys no one. Change that, for all out sakes. Change this unpredictable killing machine into _our_ killing machine."

The green leader nodded, his eyes narrow. "Good advice." He bared his claws and nodded to Stabbit. "Release him."

Jinx disgustedly threw Stabbit off her and against the wall. There, he wasn't jumped by Jagged, but Fever. The red didn't grab the insane Minion by the arms this time, but at his throat, and the stench worsened as the scaly flesh started scorching. Stabbit hissed in pain and stared at Fever with wide eyes.

"Can't," he lisped, to Jinx´ surprise – Stabbit never spoke!

"Just you see," Fever answered with eyes just as wide. Now the horde leader paid attention to it, she realized the eyes of the two were always the same. The red tightened his grip. "We only need one heart," he spat in Stabbit´s face. He ignored the blood that ran over his own shoulder as the green buried his claws in his neck. "Act normal or I'll destroy you… completely." He snorted, so his nostrils flared menacingly. His hand lit up brighter as well and the area of scorched scales around Stabbit´s throat was enlarged. The gruesome grin around the canines had frozen completely for a while now. Swelling blisters were appearing all over Stabbit´s shoulders and chest.

For a few heartbeats it was deathly silent as the two stared in each other's black-lined eyes. Then the grin disappeared. Stabbit lowered his ears.

Fever let go. Stabbit´s entire neck and chest were burned raw and were bleeding from between the remains of his scales. The red walked out of the circle and didn't look back.

Jagged gave his clan member a last slash over his chest, but Stabbit didn't seem about to move again tonight. He stayed there, a shrunken pile of Minion, and didn't even react to his wounds.

Jinx stayed there looking for a moment, but turned away as it became clear Stabbit was really no danger anymore. She turned to Hoarse. He was sitting crouched with two other reds. One of them was dead, and missing an arm. Sear.

Jinx walked to them. She swallowed. "Did that…"

"Happen before his death," the other red, Simmer, muttered. He and Sear had been inseparable.

Hoarse patted his shoulder.

Jinx lowered her eyes. If a Minion was mutilated before his death, Mortis wouldn't be able to make it undone. Sear had lost his arm forever. That was one of the worst things that could befall a red Minion, quick and agile as the clan was. "I'm sorry."

Hoarse looked up. "Throw him out of horde."

Simmer averted his eyes from his leader. He knew it was necessary – Sear's place would be taken by a red that could still climb and throw fire with both his hands.

"Maybe Giblet can take him in," Jinx proposed. She knew her brown ´clan member´ was always looking for reds that were crazy enough to keep the lava pits in the forge hot and liquid. "Sear won't have to climb there."

Hoarse nodded and stood up. "Luckily Acrid still in one piece," he spoke. And with that things were settled.

That same night the bodies were cast into sea. The water hissed as Sear's blood flowed into it. 

From that night on, Jinx slept below deck and no longer in the first mate's cabin.

More than a week. Not much longer.

It seemed longer. Time slowed when you were in a cage. Food shortage and too little room to even breathe properly didn't help either. 

The Minions of Nordberg wanted to fight back, but their kind wasn't built for this situation and many of them had become dazed. They hadn't given up, and if the cages would be opened now they'd be far more dangerous than before, but now… they didn't even have weapons, and the humans and elves now running their city stayed well out of claw reach.

Scrunt was staring ahead miserably for a few days now. There, glistening in the sunlight against the thick wall of a Nordbergian house, was his halberd.

Now, however, he looked back at the rest of his cage, and the Minions he still commanded, by the unwritten laws of the Netherworld. He let his eyes slide over his inferiors and took his decision. 

"Rags. Get over here." 

_Minions don't do suicide…_

Mortis started. He'd been busy staring melancholically at the polished plateau reserved for his Hive – the Hive he hadn't seen in twenty years and of which he had no idea where she was. He was no longer dependent of the life source, but he never spoke of the reason. He preferred not to think of it either. But now the Master had actually set sail to find his clan everything came back. He'd wondered whether his horde leader was still alive, and if so, if Zap would still address him with his old name, Murk. 

But now there came a sound from behind him, and he turned around abruptly. That wasn't supposed to happen. 

A lighting shade drifted to the Well, but contrary to all other cases this one made a sound. A stretched cry, no more than the memory of a voice, but clearly audible to him. 

"_Maaaaaaaaasteeeeeeeeeeerrrrrr…_" 

This Minion had to have died with a purpose and still be very determined… 

"…Rags?" Mortis spoke in surprise.

The next morning, the man assigned to feed the caged Minions came running back to Florian Greenheart, who'd set up his tent in front of Borius´ villa with his Soldiers. The man had wide eyes and was breathing rapidly. "Florian, it's a mess at the cages!"

As the elf had descended the hill his pointy ears flew up. The furthest cage was circled in blood splatters and there was a body within the bars. It was completely clawed open.

The man behind him shook his head in disgust. "Seems we're not feeding ´em enough. Now they start on each other."

"No," the elf muttered. The Minions stared back at him with something of both mockery and determination in their eyes. "No!" He turned to the Nordbergian. "Don't you see? One of them is _dead!_"

"Yeah, good morning, I can see that!"

"I told you they couldn't be killed!" Florian grasped his head. "Now the Demon Lord knows of his failure here… throw the cages into the river! Then he'll at least have fewer warriors as he arrives here!"

Scrunt grabbed the bars of his cage as his prison was hauled onto a cart. "Master is coming!" he yelled. "And we come back!"

That day the river carried dozens of little bodies, clad in rat fur, all the way to the overgrown ash heaps of Nordhaven, and on to open sea, where they finally sank. But one of those bodies had been dead for longer, and he alone had been enough to shake Mortis awake and send the resurrecter speeding to the throne room.

A divider walked playful steps over an elaborate sea chart. The gauntleted hand holding it handled it surprisingly gentle.

"Three weeks. That seems like a nice island to stock up on provisions, at that time, what do you think?" A finger, covered in sharp metal, tapped a small speck in the gigantic southern ocean. There was no name, but it was probably more than fit for the purpose Sayron had in mind for it.

Gnarl´s voice answered him. "That seems like a good idea to me, Sire. There is no hunger on board yet, but the hold is getting empty."

"Would anyone have ever been there? It doesn't even have a name."

"We'll find out," the advisor chuckled. "Skulls on the beach… Oh, wait a minute, Sire. What is it, Mortis? What are you doing here?"

"Master," a new voice croaked in Sayron´s ear. "There is a Minion from Nordberg in my Well. He was screaming."

"Must have run into the river because he couldn't restrain his wolf," Gnarl wafted it away. "Get away from the pool, you."

Mortis had to be determined, because he kept talking. "Shades never scream. They don't even whisper. This Minion has something to tell you, Master. I ask permission to resurrect him and find out."

"You have it," Sayron said, cutting off Gnarl. "If that Minion is making a racket like that I want to meet him."

A few minutes later Mortis´ voice sounded again. "Master… now all Nordbergian Minions have entered the Well." The blue Minion gulped. "This is Rags, the only one I pulled out." 

"Master!" 

"What happened up there?" Sayron asked with a suddenly rough voice. 

"Elves… caught us in burning nets! Put us in cages, have taken over Nordberg!" 

"Elves? What elves?" He suddenly realized something. "Florian Greenheart!" 

"You really need to kill that accursed treehugger, Sire," Gnarl growled. "Rags, your clan members have killed you, didn't they? Those scars don't look too pretty. Heart and intestines, am I right?" 

"Only way," Rags´ raspy voice resounded. "Master… people obey elves, now. Nordberg is lost." 

Sayron´s armoured fist cracked the table in two with one slam. "No!" he thundered. "That can't be! They were loyal to _me!_" 

"Not since we put Kivner away, it seems," Gnarl mumbled, trembling slightly before his Master's rage, even though it was through the mist pool. He saw Sayron´s eyes reddening slightly more.

"And whose idea was that, Gnarl?" 

The advisor gulped. "Mine, Sire. Without Velvet in his head he could have…" 

"Yes, yes. And that worked out fine without him, now did it? We have to go back. Nordberg is mine!" 

"I fear that won't be possible, Sire. Nordberg was only for starters." Gnarl furiously hoped his Master would see this. Of course he especially valued the town where he'd been raised and probably bullied fiercely by the local children, but now they had their arrows aimed for the Empire at last they had no time to lose. Not with small, distant areas like Nordberg. 

Sayron remained silent for a moment, so his bloody red eyes were shadowed by his helmet. His fists closed and opened repeatedly. Then he flung a bolt of blue lighting at the wall in rage, so a huge scorch mark was made. "Vessperion curse them! You're right…" 

"When you're the Emperor they'll bow to you, Sire!" 

Rags slightly lowered his ears – he'd apparently died only to get out of the cage. But as he saw Sayron´s eyes his hope returned. 

"No," the Overlord spoke. "Earlier. Even if I have to burn the whole city down." 

"As you wish, Sire…"

A few weeks later… 

"No fire!" 

Crawler furiously lowered himself on the thread of silk his spider was excreting from her abdomen. The red quickly withdrew his hand. It was clearly just a newborn, oblivious of the consequences it would have if he'd tried to haul himself up on another thread of older silk. 

"Is flammable, idiot!" He bared his canines at the young Minion, who quickly lowered his ears. 

"S-sorry," he stammered in a small voice. "Just wanted to look at the mounts…" 

"Jealous?" Crawler grinned from his hanging spider. 

The red looked into the mount's huge, reflecting eyes. "Yes," he admitted. 

Crawler laughed. He nodded to the newborn briefly and signalled his spider she could climb back up. He'd been on his way to another part of the – by now – strongly expanded system of vines above the green Hive. The nests.

Further ahead the stalks had become a labyrinth of silk, in which great lumps of whiteness were visible. Hidden eggs – hundreds of them. And all of them would survive, he'd make sure of that.  
>In the month the Overlord had been gone many of the Minions had gotten familiar with working with the spiders, and even some newborns could handle the mounts now. They clambered around the entire Netherworld, though Gnarl had forbidden them to enter the Tower. The green Minions had taken their scouts over the walls of the great cave even further than the reds, though the spiders didn't seem to want to go too deep. They also didn't get past the rivers, like the reds.<br>Crawler dismounted and walked over to a nearby egg sac, grasping vines to stay upright in the complex web Jinx had started. He stroked the thick layer of white silk. The guarding mother let him – one of the privileges the greens had earned. 

Something moved under his hand. 

Little jaws worked their way through the silk, pulling it in between the mandibles. Then Crawler was suddenly looking into two huge, pale but already reflecting eyes. Three more pairs ringed the sides and back of the little head. 

The Minion laid his hands under the hatching spiderling and carefully pulled it from the nest. He could see more little ones, deeper in the egg sac. He grinned uncontrollably. _Now_ he knew for certain Ramul wouldn't pull his head off. 

With the spiderling in his hands he looked back to the rest of the nests. He could already see movement. 

This was their dawn.

Three weeks at sea. Boredom struck mercilessly, even though the amusement they missed was Stabbit´s. 

Kniff wanted to come out of the crow's nest, for he knew there wasn't anything to see on whichever horizon. The thing was, there was just as little to do on deck. In the hold Scabies and Gloob were probably busy teaching the others card games, and Jagged and Whisper would be cheating gruesomely. 

Minc looked back at him from the nest's rail. "Getting north. Maybe run into kraken." 

"Not kraken area," Kniff answered listlessly. 

"Is. Teeming with them around Empire." 

"Krakens are further north. Nordbergian sea. You never sailed there." 

"You see them then?" Minc retorted. 

"No, but…" 

"See! Krakens have to be here!" 

Kniff drew his dagger and the start of a grin pulled at the corners of his mouth. He could use a fight. "Wanna bet?" 

Minc was already throwing up a small knife he kept next to his quiver. "With pleasure!" 

A tremble went through their high mast. The Minions froze in the middle of their opening attacks. Minc turned back to the rail and looked down to sea. 

A monstrous, enormously long form slid beneath the ship, magnificently visible from above. The creature was so large its form would never have been clear from the deck.  
>Already in the distance a webbed, horselike head cleaved its way beneath the waves. A spiny crest decorated the rest of the writhing body. <p>

"Sea serpent," Minc whispered, next to his clan member and with a pale face. 

Kniff followed the sea monster as it disappeared to the horizon and then looked to the side. He grinned. "No krakens. Different territory altogether." 

"You win…"

A month at sea, and finally the island Sayron had pointed to as a stop came into sight. It wasn't big, but there seemed to be recognizable Everlightian trees on it and the mountains were high enough for fresh water. The _Shadow Bringer_ was anchored in the shallow waters of a small bay and a line of deep footprints led across the beach into the undergrowth.  
>At the end of a long trail of ruined and scorched plants, the Overlord was sitting on a small formation of white rock. His eyes were fixed on the high cliffs of the same material. His reds were climbing up along them, and in all compass directions the other clans were hunting. He would serve as a beacon and the place to take the spoils to. Everyone was glad to have solid ground under their feet again. <p>

That same went for Jinx, deeper in the jungle with a group of browns. She didn't think there were any real dangers on this island, so she hadn't asked for help from the other horde leaders. She enjoyed being somewhere where it didn't just smell of salt, wood and unwashed Minions.

A small portion of her horde had returned to the ship with some carcasses of animals they'd bone. They'd dry the main part of the meat in the salt wind so it´d stay edible for longer.

The reds were on their way to the mountains, carrying fireproof bags of ancient dragon skin they'd taken with them from the Tower – they'd drag them through the rivers up there from above to fill them.

At this moment Jinx was going deeper into the jungle still because she was surprised with the life on this island. It lay in the middle between Everlight and the mainland, and it wasn't clear whether it´d ever been attached to any, be it by a bridge of land or the mythical shifting of the world. There were, however, strange species present.

There were birds like the one she was looking at now, for example. The animal had brown feathers, though iridescent blue and purple as it moved. Above that, it was clutching itself flat against its tree trunk – with four claws, both on its legs and wings. As Jinx stepped forward and it fluttered off, it was slow and clumsy. This bird was a climber. 

She'd also seen piles of earth where, at one time, a pale, blunt head had stuck out of – with scales. And in the bay where they'd anchored, large animals with many legs had been running over the shallow waters without sinking.

Jinx followed the bird with the clawed wings, pushing ferns out of the way and with her horde behind her, as quiet as Minions could reasonably be on her command. Scabies and his parrot had fortunately returned with their kill. 

The canopy thickened and it became darker around them. Jinx looked up. And saw two reflecting pinpricks of light. 

She narrowed her eyes. The lights belonged to a little creature, clinging to a tree ahead like the bird had done. His large, almost pure white eyes with contracted pupils were glowing slightly, aside from the reflection. In the sudden gloom she saw large pointy ears, almost like those of the Minions themselves. The claws with which it was holding on also resembled the hands of the browns behind her. Though, as the creature jumped away, she saw a long tail swishing behind it, far longer than even the greens had. 

Jinx blinked. Did the creature have cheek spikes? It really resembled a Minion… 

She turned to her small horde. "Wait here. I'll see if I can follow that animal." Then she crept forward in the direction the creature had disappeared into.

Without her horde she could move quicker and without as much noise, though she didn't enter the trees – she'd lose the creature for certain. It took some time, but eventually she could see the little body pressed against a tree again. A small head turned almost one hundred and eighty degrees to face her, and the bat ears trembled as the little animal flattened them. She crept closer with her eyes averted, and waited for the last moment before looking up into the enormous pale orbs again.

The creature might be small, it really resembled a dark Minion miniature. It did have cheek spikes and there even seemed to be a small hook on the tail, like the greens had. It was hairless, just like her horde members. As it hissed at her softly she could see a sharp set of teeth.

"What…"

It jumped away. Jinx ran after it.

The horde leader couldn't see it through the dense canopy, but the animal led her to the rising limestone cliffs. As she finally lost it she was so close to the foot of it, there were white pieces of rock everywhere, broken off from the higher walls.

She realized she could never solve the riddle of the small creature. She'd better return to the Minions.

"Hm." She looked up at the cliffs, just visible through the canopy. She remembered the imprints of shells she'd seen in Fay's hideout. She wanted to have a look if things were visible here, too, before she went back.

Her eyes fell to a piece of fallen rock. It had split in three, and on the fracture she could see a shape. Bones.

So not just shells left their impressions here…

Two of the three visible bones had recognizable claws. She turned to another piece of limestone. There she saw the faint impression of a crushed shape that, after a bit of puzzling, resembled a skull, flattened and with scattered, sharp teeth. Below the place the teeth should be attached to, there also seemed to be pointy shapes. 

Below the jaw. Cheek spikes?

This creature had been larger than the animal that had led her here. The proper size for a Minion.

Jinx stared down at the white remnants. Had it been coincidence that led her here? This island in the middle of the southern ocean… She'd heard the Minions had originated in the Netherworld, but magic alone could not create life and no creature had come into the world completely shaped. She had no idea how the island could be connected to the domain of the Overlord, but…

She turned. She should really be getting back to her horde.

Later, some time after she'd left, another two creatures with bat ears and cheek spikes jumped over the remains of the fossil.

They had enough provisions to last a second month and it was halfway into that month that Jinx suddenly realized the temperature was slowly dropping. They got further into the north, and as she hadn't gone anywhere but Everlight and the Netherworld for a long time the sudden coolness came as quite a shock. The same went for Sayron and the Minions. The surroundings of the Empire weren't cold, but they weren't tropical either. They´d have to adapt. Kniff and Minc finally came down from the crow's nest to sleep in the warmer places below deck, even though nobody trusted Stabbit, though he'd behaved for weeks now. 

The Empire. From the entire Netherworld only two people had ever been there, and those were Juno and Jinx. Juno spoke of her old homeland with affection and pride, but the only thing Jinx got were goosebumps. Memories came back, things she'd suppressed since she'd regained her memory. White walls and terracotta roofs, the scent of wine – and cesspits. The sewers, the slums she'd been banished to as Velvet had disappeared. Years of fighting and stealing on the streets, something that did enable her to defend herself in those first days with the horde… she'd learned to work with weapons young, one time even with the stolen dagger of a nobleman. He didn't need it anyway. They did nearly beat her to death once they snagged her. Violence, illness and hunger had been no strangers, and that was also the reason she saw her current position as a huge improvement… at the moment, even better than the good life she'd had when Velvet still had some influence.

From time to time, the rats of the Netherworld had reminded her of the sewers where many people had built a creaky excuse for a home, but there were far worse things than rats in there. There, outside the protection of the city, were the frogs for an example… one of the things that caused her goosebumps. Luckily she'd been able to build a small hut outside the sewers. She wondered if that still stood upright, and who lived there now if that was the case.

"Jinx!"

She jolted. Sayron stood below the mast of which she was standing on a high spar, a half-secured rope in her hand.

"Raise that sail, will you!"

She quickly finished her knot. Then she jumped up to a spar higher still and unfurled the red sail that had been tied around it, so it could catch the wind. The ship creaked and jumped forward over the early waves with new speed.

She landed on deck with a loud thud. "How much longer, Lord?" 

"A few weeks. How's your magic?"

Jinx smiled. She had gone on practicing herself, and she could answer him by raising her hand. It was no spark, no star that lay there in her palm, but an orb taking up all space between her fingers. As she moved her hand the magic traced a thin trail through the air, almost like it had done in the magic room.

"Don't throw it. Good. You're ready." 

"I'm not too sure of that."

Sayron looked at her for a moment. "Ah, your old home? Believe me; I particularly enjoyed it to crush Nordberg."

"But what if…"

"If they're too strong? They aren't. We will rule for a thousand years, Jinx. _I_ will rule for a thousand years. And you'll enjoy it just as much as I did to see your old enemies bow down before you." With that the Overlord turned away and walked back to the aft deck.

After a week of sleeping below deck, Jinx had gotten used to her rough bed of old sacks from the hold. Still she didn't seem to be able to sleep, a few weeks after Sayron´s ´comfort´.

It must have been about five o´ clock in the morning when she finally tired of it and ascended the stairs to the deck. She laid her arms on the rail and stared into the east, where the sky lit up to signal the upcoming sunrise.

There wasn't just light on that horizon. There was something dark as well, ringing the edge of the world.

Land. 

Land!

Jinx forgot to breathe for a moment and stood at the rail completely frozen, her eyes wide and without feeling the cool seawind blowing her hair back.

A rattling resounded behind her. She turned slowly. There was no Minion at the wheel, like there usually was during the night shift. It was Sayron in person.

"You knew," she uttered. "You exactly calculated it."

"So here we are," the deep voice resounded. "Clear sight of our prey."

Jinx turned back to the sea – and the shores of the Empire. No wonder she couldn't sleep, so close to… home.

She tightened her grip on the rail as if clutching a lifeline. "Courage, Jinx," she muttered. She remembered what the shape of her magic had said before she'd turned herself into her bearer. "Now everything begins."

**General: Man am I glad to be out of Nordberg, I was frozen to the bone. A pity about the Minons but at least the Master knows about those treehuggers siding with those traitors. Please review people.**


	18. Enter without Knocking Part 1

**Maraxus: Boy is it good to be back. I missed this place.**

**Gnarl: Good, I was getting sick of doing this by myself.**

**Maraxus: Well you sure didn't come looking for me.**

**Gnarl mutters incoherently**

**Maraxus: What were you doing anyway? What has been happening? Is Jinx okay?**

**Gnarl: You readers enjoy this while I fill in this human. This story and OCs are the property of Sunjinjo on deviantart**

**Enter Without Knocking**  
><span> 

A sheltered bay, a muddy beach with plants sturdy enough to withstand the salt water growing on the shore. Further inland grew a tangle of trees with a dense canopy casting the forest floor in a dappled pattern of shadows. There was no one in sight. 

This seemed like a fine spot to go ashore to Sayron – a humble start of a deadly infiltration, if it was up to him. 

His first step into the Glorious Empire was one sinking rather deep into the salty mud, but the Overlord quickly pulled his steel boot from the water and stepped into the undergrowth. Some Minions were already following him. 

He almost automatically turned as Kniff joined him, but Jinx remained absent. The girl was still standing on the anchored _Shadow Bringer_´s deck and was looking at the mainland with an undecided look. 

"Jinx? Are you coming?" 

"Not going without you, Jinxie," Kniff spoke silently. He knew very well what was happening in her head right now. 

Jinx grasped the rail slightly firmer for a moment and then flung her legs up and over it. She splashed into the water of the bay with her feet forward. 

Very briefly, she remained there. In that moment the land flashed before her eyes, beneath her as if she was flying. This dense forest, open plains, a swift-flowing river and a high wall with gates of green copper. A broad, straight road with the wooden guard towers of the Sentinels on both sides. Huge villas compared to which the houses in Ignavopolis were mere huts. Another wall, thicker and higher this time. Streets and alleys, squares and then a towering palace… 

"Jinxie?" 

She shook her head and returned in the here and now. 

"I´m coming," she said with a clear voice. She ploughed through the water with great strides and joined the Overlord. 

The air in the Empire smelled of a mingle of apple blossoms and the many herbs deeper inside the forest. Jinx furiously blinked her eyes as the all too familiar scents and surroundings nestled themselves deep within her and uncovered even more forgotten things than during the sea voyage. 

"Jinx," Sayron suddenly spoke, interrupting her thoughts. "You know this area. What are we up against?" 

Jinx swallowed. "Probably the Heartland first, considering we´re southeast of the city. That surrounds Arcadiopolis on our side, but not in the north, there the lands are wilder. The Heartland is full of the villas of noblemen who can afford not to live in the city itself." 

"Summer palaces," the Overlord nodded. "Well guarded, I assume?" 

Jinx nodded. "Sentinels everywhere." She shivered as she realized she herself would be all too visible to them now her magic had awakened. She´d always feared them, and the reason was now apparent. 

"And after that?" 

"If we make it through the Heartland there´s a city wall and then the city itself, and we´ll have to see quite much of it, because the Arena´s in the north. What´s the plan to get in there? If there´s anything well-guarded, it´s got to be the Arena." 

"We have to get under it," Sayron spoke, his gaze still ahead as they walked through the silent forest, looking around if there wasn´t a soldier or even a peasant to see them. At this moment, no one would remain alive to tell his story to the Emperor. "Gnarl reminded me we have to get to the dungeons, but I hoped you could tell me where they come out on." 

Jinx´ pace slowed as she got the feeling coagulating lead was pumped into her legs. "The dungeons…" she heard herself say. "They end in the slums in the northern part of town." 

"…I see…" Sayron spoke slowly. "And I think you know them better than the rest of the city, don´t you?" 

"I´d rather not return there, Lord. But I don´t think I have much choice." 

"It´s about the blue Minions now," the Overlord said. "Invaluable. With them we can… what´s that?" He halted abruptly, and with him the rest of the group. Some Minions bumped into each other. 

There, nailed to a tree, was a smudgy piece of paper. There was a portrait printed on it, in sepia-coloured ink. Jinx walked forward slowly and incredulously outstretched a hand to the picture.

JINX LAURENTIUS-ANGELICA  
>THE PURPLE SCOURGE<br>DEAD OR ALIVE – 500 AUREI

Jinx stared at the words wide-eyed. "Five hundred aurei," she muttered in a trembling voice. She couldn´t even imagine that much money in one place. And now it was on her head? _Her_ head? 

"Purple Scourge," a raspy voice next to her spoke. She looked down to see two big yellow eyes above an even bigger grin. Of course it was Kniff. 

"Name to be proud of," he laughed. He punched his fist against her arm and chuckled cheerfully. "Nice picture." 

Jinx turned back to her wanted-poster. With some imagination one could recognize her face, but only if they really knew what they were looking for. She had short black hair, but that was about it. She hadn´t been famous enough – after her eighth year, at least – to be really remembered and the escaped fugitives from Ignavopolis who´d spread the word of her existence hadn´t really looked at her well enough either. With just this picture she would never get caught if she wasn´t standing directly beside Sayron. 

Sayron was grinning slightly as she walked back to him. "Your reputation is speeding ahead of you, leader." 

"There have to have been survivors from the fortress who saw my magic," she realized, still slightly dazed. "Purple Scourge. Haha." 

"Lucky thing Velvet´s in the Netherworld," the Overlord remarked. "They would´ve tried to get her out of Nordberg. Angelica? That name has some weight now, I think." 

They left the tree behind and went deeper into the forest. Jinx expected to arrive at the open plains any minute and be looking out over the walls of the Heartland, but that didn´t happen before a new surprise came on their path. It was also in the form of posters this time. They had to be getting really close to the plains, because there were more now. The helmeted head on the first was impossible not to recognize, though Sayron´s appearance had to be more than clear to even the most backwards village idiot.

SAYRON OF THE NETHERWORLD  
>THE DEMON LORD OF NORDBERG<br>PREFERABLY DEAD – 2000 AUREI AND IMMORTAL SENATORSHIP

How much is two thousand aurei, exactly, Jinx?" Sayron asked dryly and without looking back. "I noticed you were shocked with your own poster." 

"Very much, Lord." Jinx took a deep breath. "Enough to get someone out of the slums forever." 

"Ah. That immortal part is figuratively, I assume?" 

"Maybe not. Emperor Solarius has been looking for a way to become immortal for quite some time. If he´s found it I doubt the fact he wants to share, but with the captor of his greatest enemy…" 

"Flattery," the Overlord grinned. "And what do we have here?" 

Some Minions had hurried ahead and were now standing around a second tree, chattering and in many cases roaring with laughter. There hung a poster with two pictures. The first was a monstrous head with narrowed eyes, huge scaly ears so frayed there was barely any skin left, a nose fit for a pig and a gigantic drooling maw filled with dragon teeth. A double row of continuous spikes ringed the broad chin. The picture was a mixture of caricatures of a brown and a green Minion, considering the fugitives had probably failed to see the difference between the two. The second picture was that of a head with curved ram´s horns, no ears, flaming eyes like those of the devil himself and a nose and mouth like those on the first picture. 

All in all they resembled Minions just enough to make sure the Minions could easily go free if they hid some crucial parts and behaved themselves.

SERVANTS OF THE DEMON LORD  
>DEMONS OF EARTH AND FIRE<br>100 AUREI PER HEAD FOR LIVE CAPTURE

The Minions had difficulties catching their breath, all the worse as Jinx read them the writing. "Much money?" Gloob asked her as he wiped the tears from his eyes with a sharp claw. 

"Heaps," Jinx nodded. "More than I´ve ever had." 

Scabies looked at the poster, practically drooling. "Maybe turn ourselves in and make off with gold!" 

"I could do it," Jinx offered seriously. "If I dress up a little I look just as much like my portrait as you do with yours. I´ll free you later." 

Scabies was grinning broadly. Sayron stepped between them, however, and kept standing a few yards away. "I don´t think there´ll be any freeing, just good guarding and torture. I´d ask Juno, but it´s too early for her to be awake… does the Empire have any decent torture chambers, Jinx?" 

The horde leader shivered. "You bet." 

"Would a Minion last long in there?" 

"They´ve got brands, racks, instruments to break bones lengthways, burn your skin away from the inside and keep you alive for months," she summed up. "If they discover your fear of water they´ll probably try the test they gave me, but with a rope so you don´t drift off. Almost drown, hoist up. Almost drown, hoist up." 

The browns and greens were shivering over their entire bodies. The reds had paled to pink in most cases. "I think they´d even find a way not to kill the reds and still use water," Jinx added. "Be afraid, guys. The Master´s right. Sorry, Scabies, but come to think of it I withdraw my offer." 

"Alright then," the pirate muttered. On his shoulder his parrot fluttered uneasily. The animal, by now dubbed Duda by the Minions, wasn´t very happy to be taken from his tropical habitat, but it was far too late to return to Everlight now and he didn´t seem about to leave Scabies. 

As Jinx had been expecting, it didn´t take long before the forest started thinning after the posters. Ahead of them were sloping hills covered in short, dry grass, so they shielded that which lay behind them. Sayron walked out carefully. "What can I expect here?" 

"Maybe a…" 

_Fweeeeeeeeeeeee…_

"Dive!" 

A great lump of rock whirred over their heads into the forest and came down on the forest floor with a mighty cracking and snapping of branches. 

"…catapult guard," Jinx finished. 

"Great!"

"Gents! What was the meaning of that?" 

One of the men on the catapult shook his fist at the higher walls of the fortress. "Cut us some slack, Silvanus!" 

"Out of the question, not until the next shift arrives." 

"Scumbag!" 

Caius Silvanus, red-cloaked commander of this catapult fort outside the walls of the Heartland, turned with a faint smile. "If it happens again I´ll have you led before the Gargantuan campaign," he spoke with a slight raise of voice, but without turning back to his men. There was the sound of swallowing from the catapult.

"You wouldn´t," it sounded. 

"Try me." 

"Scumbag," it sounded again, but much softer this time. The men cringed slightly and one of them rubbed his head tiredly. "We´ve been here for fourteen hours," he muttered. "Old bread and water. I want to go to the tavern." 

"Fire another one, Claudius? I kind of liked it." 

His companion shook his head. "I can see Silvanus handing us over already." 

"He´s already barking mad to refuse to let us go… hey, what´s that?" 

The two looked down. There, on ground level, some of the second-rate soldiers guarding the fort had seen it too. Two figures, one very large and the other only coming to the shoulder of the first, were walking across the hills with great strides. They´d probably come out of the forest they´d just fired into. They were both covered in filthy, frayed pieces of cloth, especially the largest. Not an inch of his body was visible. 

"What are you? Ruborian mummies?" The soldiers below roared with laughter, but Claudius nudged his companion. "That must be slaves that have escaped from the harbour!" 

"All the way through the delta?"

"Everything´s possible! Maybe they´re trying to make off through the backland, I heard there´s a village there built by all sorts of escaped scum." 

The second Empire-born grinned. "Thinking what I´m thinking?" 

"Permission to fire, Silvanus?" Claudius called up. 

"Permission granted!" 

"_Fire…!_"

Jinx´ head shot up beneath her hood of old, colourless sail cloth. That didn´t sound good. "Sayron, aside!" she hissed at the wrapped Overlord. 

They quickly ran apart. The huge lump of rock slammed between them, so Jinx let herself fall to her stomach, her arms over her head. 

"I bet you wished you had a catapult, slaves!" one of the guardians on the fortress called out. "But no catapult for you! Naughty slaves! Back to your masters with you!" 

A giggle escaped her. She scrambled back to her feet and ran on as fast as her patched blanket allowed, as Sayron caught up with her. "Those rocks," she pointed with a wrapped arm. A rope threatened to escape her smudgy cover, but she caught it just before she could trip on it. She looked back. "Careful with those movements, your helmet is almost ripping through the cloth." 

Sayron squinted up. "I can´t take it off now. Just run." 

"Look, we have the catapult, you have the squashy heads!" The soldiers seemed to be enjoying themselves. 

"Gah, dammit, where´s that shift? I need to go and visit the little soldiers´ room…" 

A shade of an idea reared its head in Jinx´ mind, but a new whistling sound wiped it away. "Dive!" 

"Run, Sire! Avoid those boulders!" 

"Gnarl? About time! You missed our arrival! Where were you?" 

"Let´s not discuss that for now." 

"They think you´re slaves, how disgusting!" This was Juno´s voice.

Jinx blinked her eyes for a moment. Gnarl and Juno arriving at the mist pool at the same moment? She shook her head. She couldn´t use those thoughts right now. "Advice, please," she growled between her clenched teeth. 

"You´re doing fine!" A new whistle made Gnarl flatten his ears and cringe slightly. "Well, as long as you manage to keep out of firing range. Those rocks seem like a good spot to flee to, but I see you´re already on the job. Where are the Minions?" 

"I´ve summoned a couple of gates and will call them out again once we´re a little less visible," Sayron answered feverishly. Him and Jinx reached the rocks, towering granite blocks behind which they found good shelter. From here they could finally look back and see the walls of the Heartland, constructed of large blocks of stone and fortified with marble pillars. A huge gate of green copper, decorated with the lionhead emblems of the Emperor, was blocking their way. 

"The Heartland and the city are just behind those walls." Juno chuckled. "Ha, bet I´m the talk of the town!" 

"Crushing those with the enemy´s catapult would be wonderful," Gnarl spoke dreamily. 

The horde leader could just hear the catapult guards swearing, but it seemed they kept firing just in case they could get over the rock formations. 

Behind the rocks the land sloped down. Ahead of them a broad, shallow stream gurgled its way over rounded river boulders, probably to the bay where the _Shadow Bringer_ lay anchored. Across the water the forest started again. 

Sayron splashed through the stream, Jinx on his heels. "Gnarl? Good spot?" 

"I believe…" Gnarl hummed self-satisfied as an underground rumble reached his ears. "…that Grubby´s already on his way." 

A huge black Tower Gate and four Minion Gates drilled their way through the Imperial forest floor.  
>Two and a half months. Sayron had to restrain himself not to jump into the gate and soar back to Kelda, Juno and his comfortable Tower. He knew he couldn´t let his gate exist for too long, however – it´d have to disappear in slumbering condition below the surface again soon, and now it only served as an anchor for the Minion Gates. Those weren´t too stable without a stronger connection to the Netherworld. <p>

Sayron shook the sail cloth off his arm and called the Minions out. Simmer, the red, actually grinned again as he saw his Master and the brown leader in this state. Jinx grinned back. "Did you go see Sear?" 

Simmer nodded. "Is in the forge. Doing well." 

"Good." 

"There are probably soldiers near," Juno´s voice sounded from a little further, from the field around Sayron that was connected to the mist pool. "The catapult guard may be less alert, I don´t doubt the fact those unwashed barbarians are hiding somewhere with all sorts of filthy weaponry… very different from your sword, dearest," she added admiringly. Another voice snorted briefly. 

"Save your drooling for the Imperial men who believe it, Juno." 

Jinx suppressed a smile. Kelda would never like the Imperial Mistress, much like herself. They both allowed her around because she was a useful source of information concerning the higher ranks of the Empire, but to stop nagging? Never! 

"She´s got a point, you know," Gnarl spoke in a slightly defensive voice. "Fair chance there´s a camp there. Keep your eyes open, all of you." 

"And especially you, Gnarl," Jinx muttered, chuckling. "Keep those big yellow orbs wide open down there. You surely like what you see." It was probably most fortunate the advisor couldn´t hear this. 

Sayron halted. "Is it a good idea to continue? This way we´re distancing ourselves from the walls of the Heartland." 

Jinx thought for a moment, just as quiet as the rest. Then something occurred to her – the same that had made her think before. _Gah, dammit, where´s that shift?_

Camped soldiers… the wanted-poster of the Minions looking nothing like them… the catapult… the wall… 

"Lord, I´ve got an idea," she said slowly, and then looked up into the orange eyes of the Overlord. "We have to find ourselves some soldiers." 

"What are you telling me now?" 

Jinx winked at Kniff. "Trust me."

A circle course more or less leading back to the catapult guard, along the river, eventually brought them to Jinx´ goal. 

"Soldiers! Uncouth bores… At least they´re bathing," Juno ranted in a soft voice. 

Indeed, there were about a dozen half-naked men standing in the cold stream, exaggerating terribly.

"I´m going to dip my toe in… just my toe," Jinx overheard. Another jumped out of the bushes and kicked over the soldier in question, so he fell into the water face-first to leap up roaring. "Now you´re in for it!" 

"Bring it on!" 

Sayron turned his gaze to a small tent further away. Inside there was the gleam of bronze. A piece of a flowing red fabric stuck out of the tent. 

"They left their clothes in there," Juno realized excitedly. "I wonder…" 

"Exactly my idea, lady," Jinx grinned without taking her eyes off the tent. "Lord? Attack?" 

"Attack." 

Stripe, Gloob, Scabies, Aches and Glottis hurried forward first, being the strongest of the brown clan. By the time the rest caught up with them the job had already been done. The river took red water along to sea. 

The rest of the horde turned and ran for the tent. Glottis, however, practically walked over their heads to get in first and admired the outfits of leather and bronze piled up there. Helmets, shields, shoulder pieces, sandals… 

The Minion yanked it all in place as the rest was still wrestling with the leather buckles and shot into a salutation as his Master´s shadow fell into the tent. The red feathers on his helmet trembled. 

"A true centurion, hm," the Overlord chuckled. "Was this your plan, Jinx? …Jinx?" 

The girl shoved a gold-coloured helmet over her ears. Her bandana just peeked out beneath it, of the same colour as the plume of feathers on top. The rest of the Imperial armour camouflaged her own leather protections and the bronze shoulder pieces covered her ropes for the main part. She even had kicked off her Nordbergian boots to put the sandals on.

"Unpractical," she muttered as she lifted a foot and took a good look at the footwear. "Every sword gets straight to your toes. …Sorry, Lord?" 

"What are you doing, Jinx?" 

"Disguising," she answered with a deadpan face. "Anything worth improving?" 

Sayron was speechless for a moment. Then his gaze dropped. "Those pants and knee protectors. The Imperial guard didn´t wear pants the last time I checked. Just the skirt, please." 

"Sayron!" Kelda called out in incense. 

"She´s asking, isn´t she?" 

Jinx just looked at him for a moment, but then walked to the back of the tent without another word. As she returned she was pantless. "Better?" 

"I´d decapitate you without looking twice." 

"I´ll take that as a yes. Good, shall we go and relieve the catapult guard, boys?" 

Sayron looked on with slightly widened eyes as the Minions, disguised as legionaries, joined the brown leader. "And how will you explain Minions in the Imperial army?" 

"I happen to know the Empire takes up everything and everyone non-magical, also in the army. Nordbergians, Ruborians, even elves and gnomes if they give off their magic in a special procedure in the Palace. There´s no Sentinel nearby, so that magic´s okay, and I can pass for a new centurion introducing newbies into the catapult guard." 

"They´ll know they´re Minions…" Sayron hesitated. 

Jinx laughed. "If they go by those posters not a soul will recognize a real Minion even if they found him on their plate with an apple in his mouth," she countered. "Trust me. I have this under total control…" She straightened her helmet, but the overlarge headwear slid back at an angle almost immediately. "Well, more or less. Permission to go?" 

Sayron suddenly grinned. "I like this way of forging plans. Permission granted." 

Jinx saluted and marched off with a swishing cloak, centurion from head to toe.

Claudius looked at the rock formations with great determination. "Bah, I was looking forward to crushing those slaves. Haven´t seen that for too long, I really need to go to the Arena again." 

"Keep yourselves together, men," Caius Silvanus chuckled from above. "The Emperor will decide you´ll be better off in the Ruborian quarter with that attitude." 

Claudius grimaced. The ´Ruborian quarter´ in reality was a slave quarter near a much richer part of the city, to house the servants of the senators and noblemen living there. He knew he´d rather not live there. 

"Such a nice commander we have, with his charming jokes," he growled to his colleague, next to him on the catapult. He didn´t answer, but a growing grin did appear on his face as he looked over the fortress walls. Claudius nudged him with his elbow. "What is it?" 

"Just look," was the answer. "The shift! Finally!" 

Claudius followed his gaze and brightened instantly. "Ah! The Imperial guards! About time!" 

"Hmmm… you´re a bit small," his colleague called over the wall. "Don´t tell me they´re recruiting gnomes now…" 

The commander of the – indeed, strikingly small – new guards saluted stiffly. "New lot, gents. A just arrived shipload of goblins from the Golden Mountain range. They´ve just been tested and found non-magical." The commander kept a hand at his helmet as if it´d fall off otherwise and had a voice sounding like it was being deepened on purpose, but Claudius wasn´t in the mood to be wary. He wanted to get drunk as soon as possible and hurry off to the Arena if he still had time. He´d heard there were blue demons on the program again soon. 

Silvanus bent over the wall. "Open the gates. Come on, let them in, the men want to go into town," he grinned. "Good boozing, gents!" 

"Good day to you too, commander," Claudius answered sweetly. Inside he was labelling Silvanus things even Sayron would be surprised if he knew about. 

The new commander marched through the gates, his men behind him in a loose formation. Silvanus looked down on them. "What a strange shape those goblins march in." 

"They have a lot to learn, but that´s my job," it resounded in a low voice. "Boys, square, not triangle, what did I tell you?" 

Silvanus looked at one of the new guards with raised eyebrows. "What´s he wearing on his helmet? Peacock feathers?" 

The commander swallowed. "One of those things I´m telling them about," was the answer. "The red feathers were beyond saving, and so was the peacock, I´m afraid." Inside Jinx was swearing at Nails – it had happened behind her back, but she should have watched him more closely as he went for the wandering bird. Luckily Silvanus didn´t seem to pay much heed to it. Goblin manners. Jinx suppressed a smile. She hoped the Minions could restrain themselves as well. She could imagine they were irritated because they had to keep their ears folded beneath their helmets, but there was no other way. Those ears had been the most recognizable on the posters. 

No one blocked their way as they walked to the catapult. "Take your positions on the fortress wall," Jinx ordered the Minions. _This is too good to be true. This is great. I feel like an Overlord._ She halted, there on the wall of the Imperial fort. _At this moment, I _am_ an Overlord. These are _my_ Minions._

Two Minions mounted the catapult. Jinx kept standing next to it and nodded to Silvanus. Then she turned back to the hills and searched for Sayron. 

The real Overlord didn´t show himself yet, so Jinx kept in character. She exchanged glances with Kniff and Minc, next to her on the catapult.

"Fantastic, Jinxie," Kniff muttered from the corner of his mouth. He grinned ahead, his back to Silvanus.

"Thank you," she answered at the same volume. "I do my best." 

Then suddenly, a shadow appeared behind the granite formations on her left. Sayron raised an arm and the amber gem flashed. She was the only one who saw it. She was supposed to be keeping watch. 

She pretended to see something on the right, where the walls of the Heartland rose up. At the same time she quickly gestured to Minc and Kniff to turn the catapult. "Open the gates, will you," she called down. "There´s someone who wants to enter." That was the absolute truth. 

The soldiers down there, who couldn´t look through the gates, immediately did as the higher-ranking commander ordered. The catapult fort´s gates swung open. 

The catapult turned to the group of guards of the last shift, on their way to the Heartland. 

"Fire," Jinx said in a relaxed manner, without raising her voice. 

Then all hell broke loose.

Gnarl looked into the mist pool incredulously. His eyebrows were raised high and he was even barely conscious of Juno standing right beside him to see just as much as him.  
>But she´d almost broken down at the sight of the Empire! She´d been so uncertain!<br>And now she was practically flattening an Imperial fortress on her own and commanded the Minions as if they were hers! 

He looked on, his eyes gleaming, as the undisguised Minions still with Sayron streamed in through the gates, gates that would never have been able to be closed in time by the soldiers that had opened them. The disguised ´goblins´ on the walls turned to their human counterparts and cut their throats with the sharpened blades of the Imperial guard. Minc and Kniff swung their catapult from left to right and flattened everyone of the last shift trying to make a breach from the outside with the enormous boulders piled up in front of the warmachine. Other Minions didn´t know how fast they had to load them in the sling, so many shots let the duo rain down. 

And as Sayron struggled with the soldiers at the entrance of the fortress, attacking him and trying to close the gates at the same time, Jinx was standing atop the wall deathly calm, the overlarge plumed helmet proudly on her head and with the entire situation in the palm of her hand. She strolled over the wall and aided the fighting Minions, as she scarcely took her eyes off Caius Silvanus. The real commander looked back with wide eyes, pale and shaking his head. 

"No," he kept saying. "It can´t be he´s already here. It can´t be." His cheeks trembled. "You… you´re the Purple Scourge." 

Jinx nodded as she took a rope off her shoulder with confident gestures. She swiped it out to the higher wall and was standing next to Silvanus in the blink of an eye. The man backed away in fear. 

"I am indeed," Jinx grinned from beneath her helmet. "Good morning, we´ve come to take over this land." She raised her free hand and let her magic ignite. Purple fire.  
>"May I shake your hand, commander?" <p>

Silvanus stepped back even further, but there was Nails, prodding his back with a spear. Jinx grabbed hold of him and flung her magic in his face. Then she pushed him off the wall and looked after him. 

A second later her face was illuminated by a purple explosion. A grin let it reflect off her teeth, then there was the thud of the remains of the body on the fortress´ tiles. 

In the Tower Kelda burst into applause. Juno hesitated but followed her. And Gnarl shook his head in a mixture of disbelief and something else, a big grin showing his irregular teeth.

"Well done! The wall, quick!" 

Jinx looked down. "Minc, Kniff! Aim that thing for the gates!" 

A few seconds later an enormous lump of rock sailed for the copper gates of the Heartland. The guardians on the walls had fled ages ago as they´d noticed something terrible had taken over the catapult. 

The crack was muted by the distance, but the gates burst apart in a rain of remnants. The Imperial lion flew through the air in two halves and buried itself into the fertile earth on both sides of the wall. 

The Heartland lay open for anyone who wished to enter. And there were quite many of them.

Jinx stepped through the remains of the gates first, still clad in the armour of the catapult guard. She´d dumped her own clothes, along with those of the Minions, in the Tower Gate and she was just hoping everything was still in one piece after the landing in the throne room. Next to her Minc didn´t seem at all at ease without his cassowary skull, the beak before his face. The horde leader could exactly see where the skull had been because the skin of his chin and around his eyes was considerably darker than the rest of his face, thanks to the Everlightian sun. 

Before them, a flattened road stretched away between high pine trees. There was nobody in sight, probably because everyone that had been there had fled. Jinx cringed for a moment – it hadn´t been the most subtle way of entering, but they were inside, there was no doubt about that. And by the look of it this was definitely no main road. No one wanted to leave the Heartland at this point. There were no Sentinels, there was nobody at all… 

Sayron stepped after her. He was lightly wounded because of the fight he´d had to overcome at the gates of the catapult fortress. Jinx realized the roles had been reversed that moment – she´d been standing high and relatively safe, in a key position, as Sayron had been in the middle of all the trouble. 

_Now he knows what my job is like._

"Let´s follow this road and see what we run into," Jinx muttered without thinking. 

"My idea," Sayron spoke, suddenly right next to her. She looked up, feeling caught. Glowing orange eyes looked down on her. _Remember your position, girl…_ She quickly stepped forward, and made sure she didn´t command the Minions in any way. They still followed her, however, even before the Overlord himself stepped forward. 

The deserted road led them straight to the southwest, straight for the city. In the bushes were insects buzzing and birds singing, but along the entire road they didn´t run into anyone, except a couple of peasants. Sayron tapped their foreheads and their weak minds had no chance to protest. 

Then the land abruptly sloped down and a second road appeared from behind the trees. This one was much broader and as Jinx peered ahead she could see several Sentinels standing atop their watchtowers. This road clearly led along many homes and probably also to the city itself, for there were far more people down there than on their path. There were pedestrians in togas and less rich clothing – slaves or peasants. There were riders on horseback, walking slowly on this crowded road, and there were sedan chairs. 

"Those chairs are something I won´t miss," Juno´s voice sounded. "Get one short carrier and you´re walking at an angle all day." 

The red light of the Sentinels played over the road, but no one seemed troubled by it, not even the few elves Jinx managed to recognize. The elves didn´t wear their typical clothing of leaves and dyed fabrics, but had adapted to the lower layers of society. Only a few of them wore togas. 

Jinx frowned. It seemed as if the Sentinels didn´t cast their gaze upon the sedan chairs.

Come to think of it, they never did, but she paid attention to it only now because it was her business now. 

"Better not step onto the main road, Sire." 

"My idea. Let´s continue along this path, it seems easier to survive." Sayron crept on behind the bushes as silently as possible, to the point their path passed the main road. The Minions swiftly ran after him, covered by the disguised ´goblins´ and Jinx as much as they could. 

The path led up again, onto a rocky hill, but it did stay parallel to the main road so they came to walk above it. For a few minutes they had a view over the crowds of the main road below them, but then suddenly the Minions that had hurried ahead rounded a corner and practically stood in the middle of a group of soldiers. 

Jinx froze as she saw it. Then she realized all Minions in sight were disguised. Nothing was lost yet. She gestured backwards the rest was to stay behind the rocks and then focused through her initial shock. 

"Alright men, I want you to meet our newest recruit! He is known as a Gargantuan and hails from our experiments… I mean special training program!" 

The centurion in the centre of the group theatrically gestured to a large tent. Then something came out of it, something that made Jinx involuntarily gasp for breath in horror. She wasn´t the only one, many of the real soldiers around her and the Minions did the same and the men didn´t even notice the disguised horde members. 

"I suddenly feel very, very small," one of the soldiers mumbled. 

What was standing there in front of them was a true mountain of flesh. Legs like tree trunks, covered in copper armour, a chest like that of an Everlightian hornbeast and arms so muscular the chainmail protecting them nearly snapped apart. A helmet not so different from an Eradicator´s covered the face, but this being was far larger and more powerful than those already enormous warriors. This Gargantuan didn´t need a magic-sucking cannon. He was deadly with his own strength alone. 

_With great size comes little intelligence,_ Jinx thought to herself as the creature snorted and stared at the widening circle of soldiers. It had been a saying of her mother, but it was proven to be true once again. 

"As you can see he´s a tough brute, not like you wimpy lot," the centurion mocked. Then his eyes fell to Jinx and her little army. "Ah, the Imperial guard! Come here, men… creatures… what are you?" 

"Goblins," Jinx said in her deepened voice as she discreetly tried to turn her face away. 

"Goblins," the centurion agreed. "Come here. Let´s see how you lily-livered loungers stand up to a Gargantuan." 

Stripe and Scabies stepped forward, but even those two reckless warriors hesitated and were probably giddy with nerves at the sight of their opponent´s size. 

Then the Gargantuan roared and stormed forward. 

The soldiers immediately jumped back, but Jinx remained standing with wide eyes before she dived to the side. The Gargantuan slowed his enormous mass with some trouble and turned around snorting. 

This was like dealing with a grass bear! This was no human being anymore! 

She realized this opponent didn´t let himself be fooled by their Imperial disguise. She and the Minions didn´t belong here and the primitive Gargantuan brain realized that, unlike the centurion and the soldiers. That thought was confirmed as the creature went for them a second time. This time he rammed the rock wall with his helmet, but it didn´t seem to have acquired so much as a scratch as he turned again. 

"Tough head that thing´s got," a voice creaked next to her ear. "I bet it could break anything. Look behind you, girl!" 

"You again?" 

"The pool´s got a mind of its own," Gnarl chuckled. "Come on! Staying alive is a tricky sport!" 

Jinx feverishly looked behind her, making her helmet slide to the side again. She straightened it and saw an elegantly crafted gate between the rock walls. Behind it a road seemed to continue… 

She smiled grimly. "Men! To me!" 

The Minions perked their ears and ran to their ´commander´. The Gargantuan didn´t know where to look as they ran past him on all sides, but then he locked his insane gaze on Jinx, who was staring at him mockingly with her entire legion around her. 

"_Waagh!_" 

"Come here, handsome," Jinx grinned. 

The Gargantuan scraped his armoured foot over the rocks. Then he thundered forward.  
>Jinx and her horde burst aside and cleared the way to the gate. The Gargantuan didn´t manage to stop in time and squarely rammed the elegant bars. An opening was formed, big enough for a human or Minion to fit through. <p>

As the being tried to right his unbreakable helmet with clumsy hands the horde leader and the Minions slipped through the gate as if they were fish. Sayron and the rest of the horde remained behind them, without protection or an advisor. 

The centurion stared after them with wide eyes. A group of Imperial guards appearing so suddenly and disappearing even more suddenly? 

He turned around abruptly as the Gargantuan roared again. He´d better calm the creature fast… 

"_Waagh!_"

Jinx ran over the road outside the gate for a short time, but then halted. 

Whole crowds of people in white togas, sedan chairs and on horses passed by in front of her. 

This was the main road. 

She looked up very slowly. Straight above her the watchtower of a Sentinel rose from the granite. The platform shielded her from his hooded eyes. 

Then she looked ahead again. Because over there awaited something that did quite grasp her attention. 

There, past well-tended pine trees, lay a gigantic villa. White marble pillars supported a broad terracotta roof and the entrance lay beyond a huge courtyard with two magnificent fountains, flanked by statues of heroes and gods… 

"I recognize this place…" Juno pondered through the pool. "It belongs to senator Drearius! His wife accused me of sleeping with him! As if. I only hinted that I possibly would if he'd buy me a dozen new slaves with ruby-encrusted collars... that's all. And he didn't, the tight-fisted windbag!" 

"Does he have a sedan chair?" she asked thoughtlessly. 

"Of course he has a sedan chair. He's a senator. Love, if you ever have the chance, ask Sayron if he kills him for me, will you please?" 

Jinx couldn't answer her, because Gnarl immediately talked over it. "Jinx, look to the right." 

Jinx did as he told her. There was a girl in rags of clothes, just walking by carrying a bag from which a small piece of gold-coloured gauze was peeking out. She widened her eyes. "Oh no. No, no." 

Gnarl chuckled demonically. "I do know something about the Empire, you know. And the way you took the catapult tells me you know very well what you have to do now as well." 

Jinx was already lost in her own thoughts, floating to a certain shape like jigsaw parts. It indeed was just like with the catapult. It was so simple. Sentinels apparently didn't look whether the noblemen had magic… something she could only guess the reason of, because noblemen, most of all, followed the Empire's ideal and that was the destruction of all magic – but still... they did it. A sedan chair. The villa. Right. 

She briefly looked at the sky. The sun nearly touched the horizon, a sultry Imperial night was about to begin. The senator had gotten himself involved with Juno, so she could guess his type. Decadent to the core. 

Her thoughts raced to an inevitable conclusion. 

It was so good to be home again. 

"Wait here, guys," she said hastily. "Out of sight, please." Then she stepped onto the main road with a hammering heart, into the sight of the Sentinels. Hopefully they had other things to look at on the overcrowded main road. 

_Everything for evil._

In the Tower Gnarl stepped back from the mist pool, wrung his hands and burst into laughter. Kelda, defiantly hanging around at the throne in conversation with Quaver, turned as Juno joined him. "What's going on?" 

Gnarl chuckled and composed himself. "Just you see. Our Jinx has the proper eye – she's already thinking in the required strange ways, but she's not very lucky!" 

Kelda walked over to the pool, curious despite herself.

"Halt! In name of the Emperor!" 

On the main road to Arcadiopolis a girl who was just about to turn right to Drearius' villa started and looked back. There, emerging from a deserted side road and just below a Sentinel, a soldier from the Imperial guard was coming for her. He was in full ornate, with a gold-coloured helmet and plumes and all, but still something wasn't right. 

Still Cariatia Ressa, slave of senator Drearius, stepped for him quickly. The soldier halted, grasped her arm as she was close enough and pulled her with him onto the side road. Only then did Cariatia see his face properly. And it wasn't a 'him' at all. 

"What...!" 

"Quiet," the female soldier hissed. 

"There are no women in the army!" 

"There are now," the other grinned. Cariatia cringed as she felt the tip of a knife pressing into her side. "Come with me and we won't have any trouble at all..."

The disguised girl dragged her around a bend in the road and Cariatia gasped. There were about a dozen creatures in the same Imperial armour as the girl. "What's going on here?" 

"Can ask as well, Jinx," one of the creatures rasped. "What plan?" 

Jinx tightened her grip on Cariatia. "I have to think very hard about that one, but there's the small thing of having no time for that. Girl, I can kill you now, I can have my friends here kill you, I can take you back to my commander to enslave your mind or you can say goodbye to the Empire yourself and join us. It's a rough existence but we do need servants where I come from, and look at me, you'll have far more freedom than you could ever have up here. Believe me, I represent the better option. Solarius is dying." Jinx paused. "Or he will be very soon if it's up to us." 

The slave stretched her neck to look into Jinx' grey eyes. She smiled grimly. "You must be with the Demon Lord. …Why would I fight for a filthy swine of a master or an Emperor I haven't ever even seen? I'm Cariatia. My father forced my mother to give me an Imperial name, but she's called Eyja herself." 

"A Nordbergian name," Kelda spoke elatedly. "Come to us, girl, it's so much better down here." 

Cariatia's eyes widened as she heard the voice from nowhere. "Witchcraft?" 

"We also represent quite a lot of magic," Jinx said. "But no witchcraft." She peered into the honey-coloured eyes of the girl for one last moment en then let go. "I need that bag." 

"You're going into the villa," Cariatia understood. "Drearius is going to host an orgy tonight. I assume you want to infiltrate." 

"I feared that," Jinx sighed. "Yes. Stop laughing, Gnarl!" she snapped at the advisor as a muffled snorting resounded from the field around her that connected with the mist pool. She took Cariatia's bag and looked inside it. There awaited a rather minimalistic outfit consisting of gold-coloured fabric and gauze. "I can't put this on, just like that. I can't pass for a slave, not the way I look now." 

Juno suppressed a mocking snicker. "Indeed, you can't. But I might be able to make you slightly more presentable." 

"I'll have to come down to the Netherworld first. Shall I go back to Sayron? But what do we do with these Minions..." Jinx' voice faltered. She'd been pointing in the direction she'd come from, as if pointing at Sayron. But that pointing had had consequences. 

A brown Minion gate and a small black Tower Gate drilled themselves through the cobbles. 

"You're starting to acquire the feeling, Minion Mistress," Gnarl remarked. "Don't just stare at it, come down!"

**Maraxus: Hmm I sense disunion in the ranks.**

**Velvet: What do you mean?**

**Maraxus: Jinx was in charge, she felt like the Overlord, I think she may be a possible threat.**

**Velvet: So, the big bad General is admitting my daughter could overthrow the Overlord and take control?**

**Maraxus: I think so.**

**Velvet leaves.**

**Maraxus: I think I'll keep a closer eye on Jinx and her strange mother. Please review people, Happy Christmas!**


	19. Enter without Knocking Part 2

**General: Ah, I love the smell of destruction in the morning.**

**Juno: Well there won't be any. This is a mission that requires my expertise rather than yours.**

**General: Excuse me, say the word and I'll storm that house.**

**Juno: Well, until the word is said, I'm taking over. Now if you'll excuse me I have to give someone a makeover.**

Enter without knocking Part 2

As the mist pool faded out it almost immediately flashed back to Sayron. Gnarl stooped down over the image. "Lord, you'd better come back through the Heartland gate. Jinx is busy with a plan to make sure you can enter the city without being seen." 

"Where is she now?" 

Gnarl looked up. "She's descending into the throne room right now." 

"I'm coming." 

Jinx touched the floor at the moment it folded shut over the pool, together with Cariatia. The girl looked around her in wonder and shock and Jinx recognized her own emotions from the moment she'd seen the Netherworld for the first time herself. So long ago. But Cariatia seemed to be a bit frightened as well, and she'd never been. She'd always been a part of the domain. Not a normal human being. 

Kelda took Cariatia aside, so Jinx stayed behind with Juno and Gnarl. She clutched Cariatia's bag in her arms as if it was a shield. "What are you going to do to me?" 

"I'm going to make you presentable, girl," Juno smiled, but it was the smile of a snake.

By the time Sayron arrived in the throne room Jinx and Juno were already up in the private quarters. Jinx had returned to her barrack first to get the clothes she'd worn as she arrived in the Netherworld – her short tunica, trousers and sandals. Those clothes came from the Empire, so she should be able to show herself wearing them. 

Not that she was wearing them right now. Now she was in one of those situations she tried to avoid as much as possible. Now she wasn't wearing anything at all. 

Juno laughed. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do this." 

"Try to keep it short," Jinx growled. "I'm no Minion terrified of water, but I don't like this stuff..."

Sitting in the carved basin in the private quarters, as the underground mountain water clashed down on her bare back from the stone mouth of the blue Minion sculpture, she had to admit to herself she did like this privilege of the Overlord and his Mistresses a bit, despite what she'd just said to Juno. She did bathe, when she had the chance, but as little as possible as she either didn't trust the water in the upper world or there was always somebody around, and she plainly hated the river at the barracks. There was quite a lot of filth being washed from her skin right now. 

"Oil, please." 

Nubbin, one of the Minions working in the private quarters, silently but smiling handed a small bottle to Juno, after which she rubbed the contents over Jinx' shoulders. 

Jinx looked back at the Minion for a moment. 

Nubbin was the head servant in these quarters, and barely looked like a real Minion with his red overcoat, snowy white collar, intact trousers and powdered wig. He had been holding a gilded feather duster in his claws as they'd entered, which was standing leant against a wall now.  
>The horde leader, like always when she had dealings with the servants, had to violently suppress her laughter. At the same time she felt pity for Nubbin and his colleagues, for she knew these Minions had to undergo a procedure rather tempering their natural aggression and roughness. And they hadn't all chosen for that themselves. Nubbin didn't seem to have problems, however – he was made for these more civilized tasks, even slightly more discerning than Quaver. Jinx liked him, despite the fact she was more used to the upperworld brawlers. <p>

Then some sort of liquid stuff was poured over her head and Juno's nails clawed themselves in her hair. "Good gods, girl, what have you been growing in here? Keeping a patch of endangered mushrooms?" 

Jinx groaned as she scooped water over her face to flush the liquid from her eyes. "None of your business," she spluttered. "I like my mushrooms." 

"Not so witty, madam. I bet you haven't cared for your hair since… well, never, am I close?" 

"Why would I? No one cares." 

"Drearius will care," Juno retorted with a swish of her long hair Jinx couldn't see, but feel all too well by the nails in her scalp. "He may be a fat toad, he has got an eye for women... except that creature he's married to." 

"I could reply to that with quite a lot of _witty_ comments but I won't," Jinx said, the last part slightly faster as the nails dug a bit deeper. 

"You have beautiful hair, you know." 

This was so unexpected Jinx froze for a moment. "...What?" 

"There seems to be more of it now it's been cleaned for a change. Wait until it dries, you won't know what you're seeing. All thanks to the nice things I could take from the good people of Ignavopolis," Juno chuckled. "They're so obedient they do everything I say, isn't it wonderful?" 

"Sayron's magic has a habit of doing that to people," Jinx answered as she held her head under the blue Minion's mouth to flush her hair clean. "Can I pass for a senator's slave girl? I can't believe I got that plan into my head, but even less that it will actually work." 

"Well, you know how to act like a slave." 

Jinx widened her eyes, wiped her hair back and jumped to her feet in the basin in a fountain of drops, without paying attention to the fact she was stark naked. "Say that again?" 

Juno stepped back. There was something in Jinx' eyes suddenly scaring her, something which didn't match the girl she'd been washing. "I said..." 

"Yes?" 

"...Nothing, Jinx." 

"Good!" Jinx snatched a towel from Nubbin's claws and violently rubbed herself dry. She could feel her hair dry up in the warm air, and realized it lay around her head wider than she was used to. She caught a glimpse of herself in a nearby mirror, a huge reflecting surface on the next wall. She didn't recognize herself. Her skin was even and much smoother than before, and she knew she looked less tired and determined than usual. Even her many scars were not as noticeable, except a long one over her stomach where the arm thorns of a dryad had struck her. Hopefully no one would pay that much attention. 

"You shouldn't have said that, Juno," Jinx said as she turned. "I haven't been a slave anymore for a very long time now." 

Juno remained silent and was surprised herself. But to make sharp comments now didn't seem very wise, even though Jinx was unarmed and would never dare to harm her. 

The girl walked over to a bench hewn into the wall, where her clothes were spread out. "But thanks for the treatment. I think you're going to save my life in there." She pulled her old tunica over her head and pulled on her belt. "Can I pass like this?" 

Juno nodded, secretly glad she'd gotten away. "You don't look like yourself anymore." She quickly lined Jinx' eyes with kohl so they were as black-lined as those of Fever and Stabbit. 

"Then hopefully I don't look like my wanted-posters anymore either." Jinx grinned and threw her ropes over her shoulders. "I'll change in the villa. See you later!" 

And with a few strides she disappeared to the prow balcony and over it.

As she returned to the Heartland Gnarl's laughter still resounded in her ears, even now the advisor had either stepped away from the pool or fallen silent again. 

She stepped onto the main road, Cariatia's bag slung over her shoulder, and could faintly hear the hissing of the group of greens she'd taken with her. If she found a sedan chair she'd need them to lift it. She was just praying the Sentinel would keep his eyes off her now, too. Apparently he did, for she could swiftly run to Drearius' estate and disappeared behind the pines into his gardens. The greens were excitedly whispering among themselves. Their smell was less penetrating than normal, also thanks to Juno's strong perfumes. The Minions hadn't liked it at all, but when Sayron ordered something they did it. 

Others were also moving towards the villa. Sedan chairs with obvious noblemen wearing huge jewellery consisting of gold and blood rubies inside stopped just in front of the marble pillars in the fading evening sunlight, as the slaves who did the carrying wiped their foreheads and went through their knees almost immediately. Jinx, remembering her role, nodded to them and received unsteady smiles in return. In one case she saw a confused look bordering on recognition and she realized she did know that man. She tried to stop her thoughts but she still got a name: Tacitus. She also remembered he couldn't talk since his tongue had been cut out for stealing some money from his master's belongings. The branded ´FUR´ on his forehead, the official punishment before his master had lost his temper for the worse, reminded her of this. He wouldn't cause trouble, even if he'd remember who she was. 

It was an unbelievable pity the slaves took the sedan chairs with them right away. Jinx knew it was custom to only bring them back as dawn broke and the orgy was bound to be finished. The only means of transport she could steal belonged to Drearius himself, somewhere in the villa or in a courtyard. 

The villa towered over her. In some strange way it seemed to be larger than the Netherworld Tower itself. Jinx hoisted Cariatia's bag higher onto her shoulder and tried to put herself over the fear-inducing sensation of nakedness she got from her lack of armour – she didn't feel at all at ease with just thin fabric between her skin and the outer world. She knew she'd have to strip down quite a bit further to get to the sedan chair, however. 

She stayed waiting next to the huge doors quasi-respectfully as the slaves opened them and the noblemen entered, then she followed them at an honourable distance. 

The doors closed themselves behind her with a most definitive bang. She'd entered a senator's villa. She, the Purple Scourge. Unarmed. 

She had to have lost her mind. But there was a swift glimpse of a yellow, winking eye and a gust of the smell of the greens, and she knew what she was doing it all for again. 

"Blues," Scythe's voice hissed. 

"I know," Jinx whispered back. She stepped forward. She knew a bit about the inside architecture of villas. Quick and unnoticeable as only a slave could be, she shot to the right into a hallway and followed the giggling from there. If she had to be a slave girl she'd do it good and proper.  
>She pulled open a door. Indeed, there was a group of girls – some of them already wearing the horrible clothing she'd have to wear as well, others still in their regular tunicas. <p>

"Are you new?" one of them immediately asked. "Hello! Welcome to the group." 

"Where's Cariatia? Are you replacing her?" 

"Is she sick?" 

Jinx gently repelled the chattering girls and smiled timidly. "I'm Renita." 

"Ooh, a mum one. Still, you've got to have some guts to be chosen as a dancer, girl." 

"Come on, take off your clothes!" 

Jinx did as she was told, still with her shy new personality. What she'd feared, happened. The girls gasped for breath as they saw the – still a bit noticeable – scars on her back, partly dealt by the Minions as Gnarl ordered them to kill her in the very first beginning, but for another part caused by flogging. "What happened to you?" 

"I was not always in service of a civilized man like Drearius," Jinx answered silently and tried not to think of the fact she might mean Sayron with this. 

No! She liked Sayron... he'd never willingly harm her again… 

"No wonder you're so silent, poor thing. We'll look after you tonight." 

Jinx smiled at the girl who'd spoken in gratitude and tried to pull her clothing from Cariatia's bag. "Thank you. What's your name?" 

"Vesta. And this is Luciana, Mauritia, Minerva…" Jinx nodded to the girl in question with every new name and knew she'd have forgotten everything within ten minutes. Except maybe Vesta. There was something in her eyes that Jinx could recognize. Vesta wasn't exactly satisfied with her job either.  
>Pity it would barely be better under Sayron's reign, rather worse... but that wouldn't be her problem anymore! <p>

_Unless..._ a small voice in her head said, but a hand on her bare shoulder silenced it. 

"Hurry up, we have to go in." 

Jinx nodded quickly and hoisted herself into the rest of her outfit. That wasn't much. It consisted of two strategically placed pieces of gold-coloured fabric, a soft belt with a longer piece leaving her legs completely bare, a golden ribbon as a collar of which she knew it'd annoy her for the entire night and gold-coloured gauze covering her arms up to the elbows. She shook her hair once again. She wasn't used to the lack of bandana either. 

This was no situation for Jinx of the Netherworld, covered in damaged leather and the blood of her enemies, now was it? What had she been thinking... 

A bronze bell resounded. 

"Come on," Vesta smiled. "It's time." 

Jinx´ heart shot into her throat. She just realized how strange it was she was never scared even if she faced half an army, while now... 

The scarcely clad girls pattered through the hallway, to the hall and from there to the enormous main room of the villa. Jinx heard a comforting second patter behind her. The greens were never far away and she knew they'd fight for her if they needed to. She briefly outstretched a hand and felt claws stroking her palm. 

Then two slaves pushed open the double doors to the main hall and all her thoughts were engulfed by a wave of heat, perfume and music. 

In the middle of the room a gigantic fire was blazing. Around it were long couches, piled full of cushions and even fuller of noblemen. There were about twenty men present in the hall. Magnificently crafted carpets covered the entire floor, but Jinx could see that, like the walls, consisted completely of mosaic and was at least as valuable as the carpets. The music wildly whirled around them as the girls slid between the guests, smooth and elegant. Jinx tried to imitate them as well as she could. Luckily nobody paid attention to slaves by nature, not even good-looking girls like these. And the slaves themselves didn't expect miracles from the shy, new Renita either.  
>Every girl settled with one of the guests and removed their sandals. Then the noblemen's feet were washed with soft sponges, soaked in the scented water standing next in tubs to the couches.<br>Jinx had knelt down before a man who wasn't even that fat, and taller than most nobles. He was actually skinny, but he hadn't been too modest on the jewellery. The girl only looked up when she couldn't turn back anymore and her heart skipped a beat as she recognized him. He looked over her head to the rather talkative man on the couch next to him, but in the way she was staring at him it was only a matter of time before he'd look down. 

_Marius Ovidius,_ it rang through her head as she clutched the sponge. The music played on louder than ever. _This is the worst person I could have chosen!_

She immediately turned her face away from the brown-haired, monocled Speaker for the Emperor and prayed he wouldn't look at her. Marius would definitely recognize her. He was Rose´s husband... He had been there as she'd been thrown into the river! _And_ he'd been present as Sayron took over Nordberg and killed his brother... He'd doubtlessly make some noise if he'd recognize her.  
>But he'd never liked the more decadent aspects of the Empire... more decadent than most, anyway. It probably was an obligation to go to certain orgies – very unpleasant, yes. <p>

Jinx kept her head down, clenched her teeth and started washing Marius' feet. This had to be the worst humiliation she could think of. She decided she would be the one, when the moment arrived, to kill him in person – even if she'd have to snatch the sword from Sayron's hands. But not tonight. Tonight was a moment of silence, discretion... and humiliation…

Sayron and Gnarl both stood on one side of the mist pool. They exchanged glances. 

"This wasn't the best idea." 

"It could just work out, Sire," Gnarl spoke, but there was nervousness in his eyes. "So far Jinx hasn't let us down." 

"Let's hope this turns out well, then." The Overlord had a hand on the hilt of his sword and the advisor could see he was willing to take the villa by force. Gnarl outstretched a bony grey hand. "This is the best way, Sire. You've voyaged all the way over sea to remain hidden. Jinx is making sure that isn't ruined now." 

"I hope you're right..."

The first course was brought in. Jinx finished the footbath and peeked at the table as she stood up next to Marius' couch. There a beautifully crafted plate was put down with a small body on it, surrounded by flowers and fruit. 

"Dormice in honey, fattened on poppy seeds," Drearius announced from his central seat near the fire. It was a true senator – bloated, clad in a toga that probably wouldn´t be white anymore by the break of dawn and hung with jewellery. In his short, curly hair he wore a crown of leaves, the token of a host. He snapped his fingers. "Girls, come here. Amuse us." 

The slave girls flocked together around him. Jinx hurried away from Marius, unbelievably glad she could get away from him for this moment. She went to stand next to Vesta and the two exchanged glances. Vesta smiled encouragingly. "You're doing fine!" she whispered. "You're a natural." 

"Thanks," Jinx mumbled back, not too sure whether she should be glad or not. She'd never exactly thought of herself as elegant. 

"Dance for us, girls!" Drearius clapped in his hands and the music changed to a more fluid rhythm.

The guests turned away from their meals – that'd already disappeared in most cases – and looked at the slave girls. Jinx tried to look like her old self as little as she could and furiously hoped Juno's treatment had disguised her well enough. For a brief moment she wondered how much of this Gnarl could see. He was probably laughing himself silly, just out of hearing range of the pool. 

The girls started dancing and Jinx went along as well as she could. She noticed, however, the music engulfed her in a strange way and the movements were plain sailing from then on... It was almost as if she was in the middle of a fight, whirling and stabbing... 

"Easy, Renita!" one of the girls hissed at her. "Did you make this dance up yourself? We can hardly keep up with you!" 

Jinx focussed and realized she'd caused the girls to keep up a wilder rhythm all by herself. Some of the guests were clapping their hands with the music and they were clearly enjoying it. "It's something else, Drearius," she heard one of them say admiringly. The senator sat there watching with a grin. 

Jinx kept dancing and told herself she was indeed fighting, just in a slightly other way than usual. From the corner of her eye she saw an amber flash and she realized the greens were also watching her from the side. She just hoped no one would notice their eyes. She couldn't signal now. 

Then she saw one pair of glowing eyes and a barely visible blue sock flash into the hall into the direction of the fire. Marius' untouched dormouse was snatched from his plate. He didn't notice. His eyes were fixed on the dancers, be it with slight boredom and not paying much attention to them either. 

Then Jinx suddenly felt something on her leg. She looked down. An apparently floating piece of charcoal was drawing something on her thigh, with jolts and not too clear because she kept dancing, but it resembled a rough drawing of a spider. A spider. Then this had to be... 

Her face froze as all at once she felt something else and very strange against her leg. She kept dancing because she had to, but used the next best opportunity to kick the air fiercely. She felt how the Minion was flung off her leg and heard a faint thud as he smacked into the nearest wall. She quickly rubbed her legs together to remove the spider drawing and tried to keep her face neutral.

That wasn't easy. 

The music and the dance continued as Drearius clapped his hands again. "A second course which is worthier, my dear guests. The udders of sows fed with figs, and on top of them... stuffed peacocks."  
>New slaves removed the first plates – at which Marius looked at his in surprise – and put new ones in their place. The udders were barely recognizable, but that couldn't be said about the peacocks. The birds had been plucked and roasted, but after that their tail feathers had been put back in. Jinx immediately thought of Nails and his new headwear. <p>

The dance calmed down as the guests turned to their meals and didn't pay much attention to the slaves anymore. Shortly after Drearius snapped his fingers again and directed the girls back to the guests. The nobles did have spoons and knives on their tables, but they mainly used their fingers for eating, even Marius. Jinx knew it was up to them to wash the nobles' hands if they outstretched them, and she also knew every guest had his personal slave for the night. She was stuck with Marius.  
>On her way back to him a man she'd heard spoken to as Porcius grasped at her and managed to get a fat hand around her waist. Jinx froze and let herself be dragged closer, but her heartbeat resumed as a girl – Minerva, she thought – intervened. "My lord, I'm your appointed slave for tonight, lord Marius needs Renita now!" The girl fluttered her eyelashes and Porcius fortunately let Jinx go, so she could hurry off to Marius. She'd never been this glad to come closer to the Speaker. <p>

She knelt down next to him and grasped the tub of rosewater in case he'd need her. In fact she had the best position. Marius would never look down and didn't seem to have any interest in his slave, however scarcely clad she might be. That couldn't be said about the rest of the nobles. Young men with leafy crowns on their heads refilled the cups with wine as soon as they were half empty and the men, heavy though they were, started to feel the consequences – laughter, slurring and the little screams of the slave girls almost drowned out the music. 

_When can I leave? When in the name of the gods can I go to that sedan chair? Vessperion, I want to turn this villa upside down and burn it so badly._

Marius washed his hands more often than the rest of the men. Most of them just kept eating until they were dripping with fat and only turned to their slaves for other forms of amusement, but Marius ate in a more civilized way and outstretched his hands more often, so she could clean them. Jinx was having difficulties keeping her face neutral. _I'll chop those hands off before I kill him._  
>She felt a tap against her leg. A single yellow eye lit up. "Was searching," a shadow of a voice hissed, barely audible above the music and the talk. <p>

"For the sedan chair?" Jinx breathed back. 

"Too many guards. Everywhere, doors with slaves, too big to open. Need you." 

"But I can't leave. Not now. These people…" Jinx looked around the hall for a moment, "…are capable of killing an annoying slave at their tables. And I'm unarmed..." 

"Be subtle," the Minion hissed. "Like in fortress." 

"Yes. Even subtler." 

"Alright." With that, the Minion disappeared from her side and left her with Marius. 

"And now for the main course, dear friends!" 

Conversation stopped. The music changed tone as the doors were opened. A legion of slaves waltzed in, three truly gigantic domed plates on their shoulders. They were put down scattered through the hall. Then the domes were removed. 

Jinx widened her eyes. There lay the roasted bodies of animals she knew of only as… hornbeasts.  
>The enormous, terrible grazers of Everlight, with horns like swords and hooves like flat shields, caught and prepared by the Empire? These had to have been transported over sea alive, even before they'd left from Ignavopolis, especially for this evening. <p>

Three of them were more than enough for twenty noblemen. The hornbeasts were so large even Sayron could have ridden them effortlessly... a live one, that was. 

The beasts' eyes had been replaced by grapes and in their jaws an entire salad had been prepared. They were surrounded by high piles of fruit and flowers, among which also tropical ones from Everlight. How those had arrived here so fresh baffled Jinx. This wasn't food, this was art. 

But the most spectacular was yet to come as the first knives were put into the beasts and they were cut open. As soon as cuts appeared in the flesh there came a sound from within the huge mountains of meat. Chittering, screeching, whistling. And then it happened. 

Whole swarms of brightly coloured birds burst from the stomachs of the hornbeasts. Every species Jinx had ever seen on Everlight, and more. There were yellow and green parakeets, purple birds with enormous orange crests, black and white ones with a multicoloured nacre gleam, and the large blue and red parrots. The horde leader stared up at the rainbow-coloured swarm and perplexedly wondered what Scabies would think of this. 

The guests, too, were shouting in admiration and it took a while before anyone got to eating. One of the nobles reached into his toga and pulled out a small crossbow, amusing himself by shooting down the terrified birds one by one. Jinx gnashed her teeth, but quickly stopped and hid her face behind her hair as Marius looked down.

"This is insane!" 

Juno looked up from the pool and quickly wiped the admiring look off her face. "No, dearest, this is the Glorious Empire." 

Sayron stared at the chaos in the villa's main hall. There were birds everywhere, the wine, constantly refilled by the alert slave boys, really started to kick in with the nobles and the music echoed into the throne room so loud the portal peaks rattled. "She'll never get out of there in time." 

"Maybe not. But she's crafty, Sire." Gnarl looked up. "She'll make it. She's got your best greens with her."

A soft hissing. Marius' wine chalice disappeared from his table. This time the Speaker for the Emperor did notice and he shot up straight from his cushions. "What...!" 

"Ramul!" Jinx hissed. From behind the couch she could hear spluttering. The green Minion didn't seem to like the wine. "Give it back!" 

In the meantime, Marius' neighbour was slapping the Speaker on the shoulder. The more obese nobleman was clearly experiencing more of the drink's influence. "Drearius has outdone himself, what do you say, Marius?" 

"Yes, yes," Marius answered irritatedly. "Wait a minute..." He stood up and looked around him better. Then, to Jinx' horror, he looked down. Marius Ovidius, against a backdrop of lanterns and a whirling parrot swarm, looked straight at her in search of his wine cup. His expression changed from slight irritation to recognition. Gruesome, lethal recognition. "...You... this can't be..." 

Jinx looked up at him. "Good evening, lord Marius," she spoke defiantly and with far more confidence than she felt. 

Marius stared at her. "Slaves! Guards! This is Jinx Laurentius, the Purple Scourge!" 

Everyone stared at Jinx. For a moment even the music seemed to stop. Jinx held her breath... 

"That slave girl? Are you drunk already, Marius?" one of the nobles hiccupped. 

"That's just a normal girl with black hair, friend. You're imagining things." 

Marius spluttered. "Do you really think I wouldn't recognize her if I…" 

"My dear Marius," Drearius slurred from his seat. "You wouldn't stir things up and ruin my night, now would you?" 

"I'm the right hand of the Emperor, _senator_ Drearius," Marius spat with a voice like poison. "And this here..." He looked down and froze. 

As all attention had been fixed on him, the unnoticeable slave girl had swiftly made off. 

The doors banged shut as he spun round to face them. 

The rest of the slave girls rose and placed flower crowns on the nobles' heads. Marius opened and closed his mouth in disbelief as a curtain of daisies obscured the place where Jinx had been sitting from his sight.

The Purple Scourge practically flew through the hall as fast as her minimalistic outfit allowed. 

"Minion gate! Minion gate! Minion gate!" She pointed at the marble tiles of the villa like a lunatic, trying to pull off the same trick as she'd done outside on the side road. There she'd managed to summon gates herself – she had to be able to do it again! "Gnarl! In the gods' name, send Grubby out! I need a horde in here!" 

"Working on it, Mistress!" Gnarl called back half mocking, half dead serious. And yes, with her next attempt two gates dug themselves through a magnificent carpet, a brown and a red one. "This is everything I can do this fast!" 

Jinx hesitantly raised an arm like she'd seen Sayron do. To her own surprise, two hordes tumbled into the villa. "Hoarse! Control your horde! Things can go up in smoke later, but not yet." 

The red leader nodded quickly. Jinx gestured to the Minions to follow her and ran off again. "Jagged! Are you here?" 

A hiss answered her, but it wasn't Jagged to materialize next to her. It was Ramul. "Jagged still in main hall!" 

"Ramul? You've managed to land me into trouble wonderfully." 

"Welcome." 

Jinx yanked open a large door of which she thought it might just lead to the courtyard. And froze.  
>This absolutely wasn't the courtyard. This was the kitchen. <p>

Spink and Clout, two of the eldest Minions, rubbed their claws together. "Looks like Melvin's kitchen," Spink grinned. Clout drooled as he let his gaze wander around. 

The cooks – probably slaves as well – stared at the Minions in bewilderment. Then at Jinx. "Who are you and why does a dancer come to the kitchens _and what are those?_" 

Jinx didn't have time to answer. The Minions had already hurried forward. They didn't get such refined food in the Netherworld and they now grasped every chance to bring some variation to their diet. 

The horde leader stood there watching, powerlessly at first but soon shaking with laughter, as her horde and Hoarse's went wild in the enormous kitchen; swinging by the high racks hanging full of meat as they stuffed themselves with great chunks of it, flinging sauces around at the cooks and each other, picking new hats formerly belonging to the slaves or the food itself... 

Kniff and Minc, again wearing their normal outfits of tuque hat and cassowary skull, came swishing past with a collection of sharp table knives in their claws and chased the slaves and some live chickens through the entire kitchen. 

Then two doors on the other side of the room were flung open. Those turned out to lead to the other side of the main hall. The guests stared into the kitchen like frozen and beheld the chaos taking place in its full glory. Right in the middle of it all was the disappeared slave girl, the oily light gleaming on the little golden fabric she was wearing. She stared back with wide eyes for a brief moment. 

And then theatrically spread her arms. "Tadaa!" She pointed at the hall with an outstretched, commanding finger. "Go, boys! As much chaos as is reasonably possible!" 

With a cheer almost drowning out the music the Minions stormed for the banquet. They seemed to enjoy the taste of hornbeast. 

Jinx stood watching with a face-splitting grin for a moment, but then snapped her fingers in a way Drearius couldn't have done better. "Jagged! Come over here with your horde!" 

Covered in so many sauces, crushed flowers and other junk they were plainly visible the greens hurried for her. Jinx looked at them for a moment. Then she emptied a left tub of rosewater over them. 

As the greens swore and shook themselves in disgust the brown leader turned around. "We're going to find that sedan chair."

The Minions were having the time of their lives with both the kitchen and the main hall as their battlefield. They might be using their weapons just for the work their teeth weren't equipped for, but still... 

However, they didn't seem to be making enough mess to actually shock the now really drunk nobles. Drearius and his guests were roaring with laughter at the ravaging Minions and didn't seem to mind the fact the main hall was steadily going to blazes at all. "Drearius," one of them hiccupped. "Are these yours? I haven't seen anything like these creatures!" 

"Except maybe those posters, but those just have the ears," another slurred. "They're great! Their appetite is even greater than ours!" As he spoke Scabies threw open the doors leading to the outer hall to let the parrots escape. Duda, however, remained perched on his shoulder. 

Marius, the only one who'd taken it easy on the wine, was standing in the middle of the chaos and jumped aside as one of the enormous hornbeast plates shattered next to him. Porcelain shards flew in his face. He narrowed his eyes behind his monocle. "It's a good thing I've brought an escort along," he growled. Then he spun around and stepped out of the open doors. As soon as he slammed them shut behind him, three kitchen knives buried themselves into the wood and a jug of olive oil shattered against it.

Again Jinx ran through the long, luxuriously furbished hallways of the villa, bumping into fleeing cooks and throwing over other slaves. She skidded around a corner and immediately smashed into a beautiful vase on a small table. The clatter of breaking pottery resounded through the corridors and there immediately was a reaction from ahead of her. 

"Hey! What's happening over there?" 

Jinx rounded another corner and was standing in front of two large doors – which weren't unguarded. Two guards who probably did get paid were blocking her way. There were short swords hanging from their belts. Jinx looked at the weapons disparaging and was about to grab her own, but then realized once more she was unarmed and practically naked – not in the position to start a fight. She looked up at the guards nervously for a moment, but then looked back with the same expression. "Oh, lord, it's a mess in the main hall! I've fled... I believe the servants of the Demon Lord are inside!" As if to emphasize her words, something which could only be called a muted explosion resounded from behind her. 

The guards stared at her and then both ran past her. Jinx turned to keep following them. "Jagged!" 

"Yess..." it sounded in a hiss. Not a second later both of the guards fell over, their throats clawed open. Jinx thrust open the heavy doors with some effort. 

Yes! The courtyard! And there in a sheltering group of trees… the sedan chair, crafted from hard wood with all sorts of gold leaf decorations and closed with dark red curtains. Finally! She looked up at the night sky and could see it wouldn't take long for the sun to rise. They'd escape with the dawn! 

Then the enormous gates on the other side of the courtyard opened and Marius stepped in from the outer gardens. "I should have known. So here you are, Laurentius." 

"Marius," Jinx hissed. "I haven't properly introduced myself. Jinx of the Netherworld, pleased to meet you..." 

The Speaker snapped his fingers. Jinx abruptly looked up as three Sentinels appeared on the rooftops around the courtyard. Three red lights slid over the marble tiles and the rosebushes around them, and then all three concentrated on her. 

And now she was truly magical. 

Even the fortress of Everlight hadn't been able to prepare her for this pain. 

Jinx' tortured cries echoed through the night and the hallways of the villa.

The chaos in the main hall was still continuing. Now the noblemen _were_ shocked and some of them had fled the villa already, along with many of the slaves. The walls were dripping with sauce and wine and most of the pillars supporting the roof had been pushed over. Anymore and the roof would probably come down altogether. 

Some Minions were lying on the couches or the plates, as stuffed as the dormice, others ran after the remaining guests. Drearius himself had run through the front doors of the villa and was probably in the outer gardens now. A screeching voice from the hall signalled his wife had come down and was most likely following him. 

Then the four eldest greens stormed into the hall. Jagged put his claws to his mouth and whistled loudly. 

Whisper clawed at the air so the light of the fire glinted off his knives. "Orders to make some heat!" 

Hoarse looked up from his personal dormouse and then dropped the little body. "Really?" 

The green Minion came to a standstill next to him and briefly clawed though the Achilles tendon of a man running past him so he fell flat on his face. "No. But Jinx in trouble and fire mostly good solution." 

"Agreed!" the red leader snarled as his eyes flared. He spat in his hands, where the fire ignited immediately. "Boys! Back in action!" 

"Can we take food?" 

"As much as you want!" 

"At it then!"

In the light of the Sentinels Jinx clawed at her own head, driven by the pain that threatened to split her skull in two. Her magic whirled and boiled within her, shrinking away like water in a frying pan. Purple sparks flashed around her fingers and disappeared. 

Marius laughed mockingly. "And you dare call yourself a servant of the Demon Lord. I expected more from someone who managed to cheat death for revenge." 

"M-Marius..." 

"Spit it out." 

Jinx uttered a long groan, her vocal cords too raw to scream, and fell to her knees. A strand of purple light escaped her fingers, then her mouth and wide-open eyes. The Sentinels on the walls whispered among themselves – they were having success! 

"Good. Let your filthy magic stream out." 

"Jinx! _Jinx!_" 

_Gnarl?_

"_Jinxie!_" 

Another red glow fell over her… Screaming that wasn't hers resounded across the courtyard and behind her. A scorching heat warmed her bare back. 

The Sentinels' lights fell off her like stones. Jinx fell over and wrapped her arms around her mangled body. 

Then something yanked her from that position. Just in time, because the marble pillars next to the outer gate collapsed and part of the roof came down. 

Jinx and her saviour rolled over on the now still spotless tiles a few times as a broken pillar thudded down next to them. Jinx had firmly closed her eyes, but as she opened them again she saw a humongous amount of fire towering over her. The flames ate through the villa from the inside out. Faintly through a film of tears, she could see a couple of reds standing in the courtyard, lobbing fireballs to the Sentinels on the roof. 

Marius furiously looked around him as he was closed in by the horde. A dozen weapons came down at once – but they only skewered a bright blue flame. He was gone. 

And the Emperor knew of their presence. 

She'd failed. Jinx curled up tightly, practically naked on the cracking tiles. 

Her helper pulled on her arm. She could only see a dark face with glowing eyes against the flames, but she knew it had been Kniff who'd saved her life for yet another time. What would she be without that Minion? 

"The sedan chair," he panted. "Save it!" 

Jinx let herself be dragged to her feet. She coughed – the smoke was already entering her lungs. The screaming from within the villa had almost stopped, overpowered by the roar of the flames. "The sedan chair," she repeated on what should have been a commanding tone, but turned out as a hoarse whisper. She coughed again. "The sedan chair! Eight of the strongest to the sedan chair!" 

The scattered Minions turned and the eight strongest of the brown horde, who'd composed themselves rather better than Kniff and Minc and were still wearing their Imperial armour in at least a certain degree, hurried to the sedan chair. Miraculously it was still intact. They carried it to Jinx, who dragged herself in. 

As they were about to carry it through the outer gate two figures staggered towards them through the smoke. It was Drearius and his wife. 

Behind them a taller form rose. It raised a mighty sword. A heartbeat later two heads rolled over the marble. 

Lord Sayron quickly called up three Minion gates and let the horde escape. Then the gates sunk again and the Overlord stepped into the sedan chair. Inside, Jinx had fainted.

At the break of dawn, on the main road to Arcadiopolis, a sedan chair carried by goblins moved to the west. It was a detour, but hopefully they'd be able to enter the city on the north side this way.  
>Jinx was busy waking up. <p>

Everyone else would, when coming back around in the sight of two glowing orange eyes from the darkness of a crowned helmet, immediately scream and faint again. Jinx didn't. She smiled. "Thank you." 

"It's not thanks to me we've passed all those Sentinels without being seen." 

"Don't expect me to do that again. It could have been simpler." Jinx looked down. She was still dressed in her golden fabrics. She blushed fiercely and could immediately hear Gnarl chuckling. "You have to keep those clothes, they suit you!" 

"Gnarl, when I get back, I'm going to maul you," Jinx growled. "And that's as soon as possible!" She remembered something. "Lord, we're in big trouble. The Emperor knows we're here! It's only a matter of time before he sends half the army after this sedan chair!" She groaned heartfelt as the full truth hit her. "I've ruined it all…" 

"I know. That's the reason we're turning south here," Sayron answered. "I think we might just get away with the blues – the security around the Imperial Palace is probably improved considerably more than that around the Arena dungeons." He patted the side of the sedan chair. The Minions turned a corner. 

"Where is... here?" 

Sayron peered outside from under the closing curtain. "A city gate with a lion's head made of wood instead of copper or gold, lower than most of the others we've passed and not exactly well-guarded. Also a reason of my idea about the Arena, by the way." 

Jinx groaned. "Oh, no." 

"We've got to keep you a little lower profile for now," Gnarl spoke. "And you can't get much lower than this place. Better now than later, considering the little slip-up of our Purple Scourge." 

The gates opened before the nobleman's sedan chair, though the guards couldn't imagine why a senator would ever pay a visit to... the slums. 

The Demon Lord and the Purple Scourge entered Arcadiopolis. Technically, that was. 

"Home sweet home," Jinx sighed. "Hopefully nobody recognizes me in these clothes."

**General: Sounds like one heck of a party.**

**Kelda: Well, at least Jinx was able to liven things up.**

**General: Indeed, although now Marius and the Emperor knows the Master is within the Empire.**

**Kelda: I'm sure Witch-Boy and Jinx can handle themselves. They've come this far.**

**General: True, but now they're arriving at the slums, where Jinx used to live… reckon anyone might try and turn them in?**

**Kelda: If they're smart they'll stay out of their way.**

**General: Sounds like a wise idea, all readers please review. Till next time.**


	20. Home Sweet Home

**General: Yes this story is back, and all credit is due to Sunjinjo on deviantart, the mastermind, the creator, and the designer of it all. I claim nothing except these little segments.**

**Juno: They're going to the slums? There's nothing shiny or expensive there.**

**Kelda: Well if they find the Blue Hive it'll be worth more than any amount of gold.**

**Juno: I don't know, there is a lot of gold in the Empire…**

**General: I thought you two had a truce?**

**Kelda: We do, but we're never going to be on the same page.**

**Juno: Anyway, just start this thing so we can get it over with.**

**Home Sweet Home**  
><span> 

"Close your eyes, hold your nose and go through the slums…" 

Juno didn't seem to be very happy as the Minions took the sedan chair deeper into the poorest, filthiest part of Arcadiopolis. Before long the buildings around them consisted of discarded boards of wood and many of them were raised on poles above grey, muddy water. Most of the colour had vanished from the surroundings, and it wasn't the pale morning light that caused it. The few night fires were the only thing granting any vibrancy to this part of the city. 

Jinx knew what those fires were for. They kept the frogs away at night. 

She wasn't happy at all. She'd hoped she'd be able to get out of the slums part of the infiltration, but she hadn't succeeded… and to make matters worse she was still wearing an orgy dancer's outfit! She rubbed the dried tears off her face, landed there during her rough treatment by the Sentinels. She knew she had to look terrible, partly scorched, with tangled hair and kohl all over her face. She'd even use the filthy water from the slums to wash everything off. 

Then a thud resounded on the side of the chair she was still sharing with Sayron. Soon there were more and she could hear the Minions growling.  
>"<p>

Who's in there then? A noble?" 

"Show your fat face, high and mighty!" 

The sedan chair swaggered. Then the front dove down to the ground – and further. 

Sayron´s hands shot out to balance himself, but even an Overlord failed at that when his seat was being turned upside down. The sedan chair toppled over, landed in something soft and then fell over to its side. Jinx landed on the covering shroud, quickly getting drenched in something below it. She clambered out through the other shroud and climbed onto the other side of the chair. 

"Oh, great! Did you really have to throw us into a cesspit?" 

Some distance away the Minions shook the mess off their armour and looked up at their horde leader guiltily. Jinx shook her head. "Not you. Them." She looked up at the people furiously, a by now surrounding crowd of men, women and some children. They were all clad in colourless fabrics offering no protection whatsoever, and most of them were barefoot in the mud. A large, black-haired man with a large nose was standing at the front, his hands on his hips. His dark eyes were narrowed. "A slave? Who's your master?" 

Jinx tried to stand up on top of the chair, but didn't succeed. As she tried to balance herself two armoured hands wrung themselves through the shroud on what was now the top of the sedan chair and the wood creaked. Then the chair was ripped in two and Lord Sayron was standing in the middle of the cesspit. 

The group of people fearfully backed away. The Overlord menacingly narrowed his glowing eyes. The black-haired man didn't even take one step back as Sayron looked straight at him, however. 

"The Demon Lord…?" He looked lower, at Jinx. "Are you…" 

Next to him a boy with brownish hair and a ripped tunic appeared. "…Jinx? Is it you?" 

Jinx, who'd been busy sorting her scarce clothing so it still covered at least a bit of her after her fall, froze and looked up very slowly. The mud dripped from her hair. She frowned so badly her entire face crumpled. She didn't want to remember that boy's name at all. 

"It´s me, Aurelian!" The boy stared at her with far too much hope in his eyes. 

"Jinx… Laurentius…?" the mumblings went through the once again approaching group of people. "Purple Scourge… travels with the Demon Lord… our Jinx… ridiculous dancer… champion…" 

Then Sayron clambered out of the pit and stepped towards the black-haired man. The mumbling silenced. Jinx, however, had understood more than well what they were getting at. 

The large man bowed. "I am Scipio Metelli, lord. More or less the representative of these people…" 

Aurelian stepped past him and waded through the mud towards Jinx. He wiped her face clean and laid a hand on her shoulder. "Jinx," he spoke softly, but excitedly. "I hadn't thought… I mean, that I'd ever… after you were thrown into the Tamesa and washed down the Witches´ Hill… I thought you were dead." His eyes were glistening. "What happened to you?" 

Jinx briefly exchanged glances with the Minions approaching her. "Aurelian…" she started. 

The boy took her hands. "It's great to see you again," he said hoarsely. 

"Is that our champion? Clad in the filthy rags of a crawler's costume?" someone probably not very close to Sayron called out. 

Aurelian looked back at her, still with those shining eyes. "Are you, Jinx?" 

Grey eyes were raised to look at him. Jinx clenched her teeth. Then her hand shot out and closed around his throat with all the murderous force of a furious Purple Scourge. Aurelian uttered a choked sound and tried to pry her fingers off, but he didn't succeed. Jinx even seemed to lift him off the ground in her rage. 

"No," she hissed. It had become very silent the moment she'd grabbed Aurelian. "I'm not your champion. You've never been mine. Don't expect noble deeds from me – ever again." 

Aurelian struggled and looked at her with pleading eyes. Jinx looked back with an icy gaze. "I know you figured out what I felt for you, kid. Nice trick. I'm not the one I was back then."

Then she threw the boy off her and in the same mud still trickling down her own back and legs. "Don't be fooled by my clothing," her voice resounded through the narrow alleys and over the grey water. "I am the Overlord's most trusted warrior and will act as such especially towards you." 

"You hear it," Sayron chuckled, a careless hand on his sword. "I assume we won't find you resisting us?" 

Scipio had taken a step back. "Most certainly not, my lord. But that wasn't the case before you arrived here either." 

A few people backed away even further as Sayron looked over his head. "Do we look like a threat?" a woman called out. "We have enough trouble already!" 

The Overlord looked at her coolly. "The Purple Scourge seems to have had some problems with you." 

Scipio cast a deadly glance at Jinx. "You were asking for it, Angelica…" 

"It is a dangerous occupation making such remarks, even if I am of an endlessly higher origin than you, oh Scipio, mighty Arena warrior," Jinx spoke with at least as much poison dripping off her voice. "Your skills with the whip are something I nonetheless will forgive nor forget." She snapped her fingers and instantly a purple flame ignited in her hand. However, it flickered and burnt on far smaller. Jinx stared at it and pumped more magic towards her hand. The flame remained small. "What's going on here?" Then she swore to herself. "Lord," she spoke to Sayron, who turned to face her. "The city is protected by a shield that prevents the use of any magic. The part of the shield over the slums is weaker, but it is present." She nodded at the flame. "We can't rely on our magic here."

Sayron swore. "First let's see if we can still summon a horde. It's a bad idea to be out and about with just eight Minions." The amber gem flared. Some people still had time to jump aside as the rumbling started, but the Minion gates drilled through the muddy soil very slowly and it took a while before the black spikes unfolded and the multicoloured fires ignited. It took even longer before all the required Minions were summoned. The hordes were small, as they probably wouldn't be needed for long – they wouldn't survive the flooded sewers. They didn't manage to summon a Tower Gate.

Only as Sayron let go of the power and the gates sunk back immediately did he see Jinx lowered her arm as well. He raised an eyebrow.

Jinx shrugged. "Would've taken even longer without my help." She looked back at Scipio. The rest of the people started spreading again, nonetheless still nervous. "Scipio. I bet you know your way through the sewers from the point I never dared to go past."

Scipio showed the start of a mocking grin, but quickly put it away as he realized who he was dealing with now. "Where are you headed?" 

"The Arena dungeons." 

The look on the large man's face was priceless to Jinx.

On their way through the slums Jinx noticed that, despite everything, she kept looking around. She'd lived here since she was eight, but after all those months around the polar circle and in the steaming jungles around the equator, it was bizarre to be back in this vast, but still so familiar area of poverty. Here dwelled the many, many slaves of Arcadiopolis. It took forty men to lift one above the mud, her mother used to say, but in many cases in _this_ city it took more. 

"So this is where you lived," a familiar voice resounded, as if telepathy was at work. 

"Mother?" Jinx muttered. "Yes. For thirteen years, here. But it was worth every day." 

"I'm sorry it went this way." 

"So am I." Jinx looked around and recognized buildings as well as people. There were Arena warriors who didn't get paid, but were good amusement, like Scipio. There were cooks and carriers like Tacitus, the one whose tongue had been cut out and whose master probably had been burned alive in Drearius´ villa. There were tasters who practiced their skills by frequently adding sewer frog poison to their food. If you didn't, you wouldn't last long in the Empire's capital, driven by scheming and murder. There were cleaners and builders, dancers like Vesta… Jinx secretly hoped she'd survived the fire. There were rowers who did occasionally see something of the world, but Jinx knew from experience she preferred not to do so from under a galleon's deck. There were carpenters and horsemen like Aurelian, who were slightly luckier, unless you were kicked cripple by a race horse like the boy… She'd seen he still limped. And then, of course, there were the many small thieves and beggars of the city, the blind, sick, deaf and others with a simple case of bad luck.

There were Nordbergians, Ruborians and others from the Old Lands, elves from the Old Forest as well as Everlight and even a few people with the healed tokens of the magical disease. Down here everyone was present.

The buildings were rarely higher than two stories and mainly built from rather rickety wood offering protection from neither wind, rain nor trespassers. Not that there were many of those in here… unless you had so much as one dupondius to steal. Lines full of pale laundry crossed the space between the buildings, often so low Sayron´s helmet was caught in them.

The grey water was never far away, and always there were the rough, damaged walls from which the large pipes emerged, many of which spewed the filthy water. 

"What poverty, what filth… just ignore it, like everyone else does," Juno muttered in Sayron´s ear. 

Jinx didn't hear it, even though the Overlord passed her by as the Mistress said it. She came to a halt and looked on to a specific point. Scipio came standing next to her. "Yes, it's still there and it's unoccupied. When we heard of your antics we decided to keep it in honour just in case you'd remember your roots." 

"My roots were never here," Jinx muttered, but it sounded hollow. She stepped across a small clearing between the buildings, beyond the ashen remains of a night fire, and towards a rickety wooden home. On the loose door, a purple, four-pointed star had been painted. 

"Purple dye? That must have been horribly expensive…" 

"Yes," Aurelian, who'd been walking along, answered. "But it does scream the fact this house has to be left alone and that our champion has lived here." 

"I'm not your champion. I'm my own champion." 

Kniff had remained silent up to now, but he started walking slightly faster than the others and approached the home together with Minc and Ramul. Simmer quickly joined them, glowing softly and illuminating the door as he did so. The house, probably consisting of only one room, was leaning against the stone wall at an angle. To its right a large pipe cast its water into the canals and to its left the water started fairly quickly as well. Not far from it, an enormous pipe opened on water level, large enough for even Sayron to stand upright in it. 

As the red Minion's light fell through the cracks in the door a hissing sound came from within the home. The two browns looked at Ramul, but he looked back just as hard. Then Minc cautiously opened the door. And immediately was toppled over by a whirlwind of striped fur. 

Jinx stormed forward, her hands outstretched. "Snaps!" Her eyes were wide in disbelief and she was grinning. "Are you still here?" 

"I more or less took care of him, but he didn't want to move in with us," Aurelian said. Jinx knelt down in front of the cat and outstretched a hand. The tabby tomcat, covered in scars, in proud possession of three quarters of ear and so large he might just as well have been a small tiger, sniffed her fingers warily. Then he raised his narrow green eyes to her, lowered his ears and hissed. 

"Snaps, it's me!"  
>The tomcat slashed out with a massive front paw. Jinx didn't pull back in time and acquired four bloody scratches. <p>

"Snaps…?" Jagged mumbled, standing some distance away. He exchanged glances with Scythe and Whisper. Only the four elders knew there had once been a green Minion with that same name. He hadn't survived Everlight. This Snaps looked like he would do so without any trouble at all. Right now he tried to claw himself up Jinx´ leg as Kniff and Minc tried to get him down. Ramul hissed even louder than the cat himself.

Eventually Snaps came high enough for Jinx to grab him, so the struggling cat hung in front of her face. Her leg was dripping with blood, but that wasn't the worst that had happened to it lately and she could ignore pain. "Snaps," she spoke. "Calm down. It's me, Jinx. I smell different, I look different, but it is me." Then she hugged the cat furiously. Snaps immediately buried his claws in her bare shoulder, but then seemed to realize what had just happened and widened his eyes.

"Riiight…" Jinx whispered. "Easy now." She knew her cat's temper better than anyone. Snaps was the scourge of all sewer rats – and bigger things – within a radius of miles around her house. And he seemed to be so territorial that even now he hadn't left the home.  
>Kniff and Minc exchanged surprised glances. Then Kniff brightened. "Like wolfies," he whispered. "Dangerous at first, remember?"<p>

Minc shivered. He could remember that day in the Nordbergian mountains all too well, the day their clan had forged an alliance with the wolves. Snaps was comparable. "But… so small. Why bother if she can't ride it?"

"Don't get all of it either. Still, look…" Kniff nodded at Jinx. The cat had relaxed and now hung over her shoulder, limp as a towel. He even was purring, with the sound of a chainsaw.  
>Aurelian had disappeared just before, but returned to them now. He carried a colourless shirt and pair of pants over his shoulder and coughed. "Ahem."<p>

Jinx looked up out of Snaps' fur. "Oh!" She blushed for a moment, but then got a hold of herself again. "Thank you… Aurelian."

The boy rubbed his throat meaningfully, but Jinx didn't pay too much attention. She disappeared into her former home to finally put some pants back on. Snaps stayed behind and leered at the Minions suspiciously. Even Stripe didn't dare coming closer and whistled between his pointy teeth instead.

As Jinx came outside again, Scipio had rejoined the group. He was carrying a torch, something which made Jinx chuckle before she realized they wouldn't be able to take the reds with them where they were going. Maybe the rest wouldn't be able to follow either, though they would try – as far as Jinx knew, the water in the large pipe was only knee-deep for the Minions.

The Arena warrior nervously looked up to Sayron. "I'm pretty certain that leads us to the Arena dungeons, Lord."

"Pretty certain? So there is another way?" Sayron briefly looked at Jinx. Scipio nodded. "Yes, but it's guarded. The only ones passing through there awaits a certain future as cannon fodder. Many of our lads have tried their luck with that passage, but not many of them survived their first day."

"And even if you survive you don't get much out of it apart from the scars," Sayron understood. He looked down as he heard a scratching sound. Snaps pulled his claws along the steel of his boots. "Jinx? Shall we get moving?"

Jinx hurriedly picked up her cat and directed him back to her house. Then she closed the painted door. "Coming."

The reds had been taken out of the horde. Scipio led them into the huge pipe with his torch, which became increasingly useful as it curved away from the docks and rickety houses, as well as the sky and the entire outside world. Sayron, Jinx and the horde stepped into a world of darkness and echoes. The Minions´ claws scratched the submerged, algae-covered metal of the pipe. The stench of the sewers around them soon penetrated the very air, even more so than in the rest of the slums.

Even here, people made a living. In branching pipes houses were built, if ´house´ was the proper description of these constructions. People who didn't find a place in the slums themselves sought shelter here. This probably wasn't the Glorious Empire people left Nordberg and Ruboria for… though Jinx knew the Ruborians hadn´t had much of a choice.  
>Rats splashed out of their way and into smaller pipes. Here and there, small frogs leaped away as well, only inches tall. These were just the juveniles. Once they were out of their tadpole stadium they grew explosively, as Jinx knew very well.<p>

They passed a large pipe, almost as big as the one they were following themselves, as it happened for the first time. For one moment Jinx could see two round, golden eyes staring at her, then a lump of darkness as big as a sheep jumped forwards. She leaped back and splashed the filthy water over the entire horde, but that was better than being throttled by one of the Empire´s giant toads.

The creature was almost a meter high and certainly two with the stretched hind legs. It had a bluish grey skin with yellowy eye spots on its head. The mouth was broad and looked as if it would be able to effortlessly swallow Minions whole. The frog opened it as if to prove it and let a long, pink tongue shoot out, snatching one of Scabies´ swords from the Minion's hand. Duda squawked in fear.

Then a giant, jagged sword blade came down and pierced the skull, chest and stomach. The tongue fell down limply after a last gurgling croak. Sayron yanked his weapon from the slimy carcass and moved it through the sewer water to wash off the blood. Jinx shivered. 

"Strange life around here, aside from the locals that is," Gnarl remarked. 

"I'm glad you're with us, Lord," Scipio said with one eye on the dead frog. "We're going to come across a lot more of these. They have a rather large territory around here and there is even talk of a king."

Jinx laughed. "Save him the fairytales, Metelli."

"The people have seen him, you know," the black-haired man continued. "Around dusk, when the fires are lit. He's truly huge."

"I should have seen him in that case, because I lived near the entrance of these accursed sewers," Jinx countered.

Sayron sheathed his sword. "There's often a grain of truth in fairytales, Jinx. Let's at least keep our eyes open."

Jinx shrugged and strolled towards Scabies´ fallen sword, landed in the water as the frog had fallen. "Can I borrow this?" she asked the Minion. "I feel more comfortable carrying a weapon."

Scabies nodded. "No problem."

Jinx stuck the weapon behind her belt, but kept a hand on the hilt. She cautiously stepped forward into the grey water and peered into the pipe the frog had come from. Her shadow cast an enormous amount of darkness, dancing in the light of Scipio´s flame.

There was a faint spattering noise in the pipe. And it was getting louder.

Jinx widened her eyes as she saw the dozens of golden specks, non-blinking, but approaching very fast. The spattering turned into the consistent, slimy sound of amphibian skin against metal. 

"Scipio…" 

The Arena warrior looked past her. "Oh, no." 

"We've got company!" 

Sayron raised his blade. The torch flame cast a pale reflection on the metal. Not for long, however.

Not a heartbeat later the first frog, three times the size of the first, threw itself against Scipio´s chest and the torch landed in the sewer water with a loud hiss. Darkness, just pierced by the glow of Minion eyes, engulfed the group. And all hell broke loose for the horde and their fellow travellers. 

Sound was their hope now, so Jinx tried her hand at yelling to lead a horde terrified by the water around them. Even the Minions didn't see much now their eyes had yet to get used to total darkness, though that'd happen soon enough.

"To Sayron and me!" her cry echoed through the pipe. "Form groups! Don't thrust ahead!"  
>Her eyes started to get accustomed to the dark very slowly, so she could see it as a long tongue, as thick as a man's wrist and covered in threads of slime, came flying straight for her. The tip hit her square in her face so she stumbled backwards, was kicked in the legs by another frog and fell onto her back. One second later the largest frog she'd seen so far was sitting on her chest. The amphibian inflated its throat, sucked it in again and opened a maw so wide Jinx gasped in sudden fear. She grasped around in the muddy water for Scabies´ fallen sword, found the hilt and stabbed the frog through its upper jaw and skull, and thrust the blade through its head until she could see the tip again. The dark blood spattered her face. She involuntarily licked her lips.<p>

_Oh, no._

The frogs were deadly poisonous, as she knew very well. She would regret this, even if she'd survive this fight.

For one moment, she wondered whether the frogs were more poisonous than the Everlightian mermaids. Then she'd pushed the cold, slimy body off her and jumped to her feet again, soaking wet and filthy, with dark blood on her clothes and sword. And just in time to see it.

At the end of the pipe, where it turned a corner, something so large it barely fit appeared. Gleaming grey, with barely visible golden spots, a mouth of three meters wide and eyes like gruesome suns…

Scipio outstretched his arm. "The King!" he yelled, just before he was mowed down. 

A rumbling sound echoed through the pipe. It took a while before Jinx realized the enormous frog was croaking. 

Then, before she could react, an enormous mouth opened from within the darkness, a long pink tongue wrapped itself around her waist, rubbery lips closed and no amount of struggle could have freed her again. It seemed as if the frogs were turning towards another tactic now, and they were being told to do so by the King. To the left and right, Minions went through the same. 

Though Jinx couldn't see it anymore, Sayron and Scipio ceased their struggle and turned their blade and whip to the frogs making off with their Minion victims – and in one case, human victim. They ran through the deepening water after the retreating amphibians. At that moment the King croaked again, so loud the pipe trembled, and leaped out of sight with one kick of his mighty hind legs.

Sayron sprinted to the point where the pipe curved around and nearly lost his footing on the slippery algae beneath the surface as he turned.

_The little ones make off with my Minions and the large one challenges me. This resembles my encounter below the spider temple far too much._

Drops of poisonous blood flew off his sword during the running. Scipio and the remaining Minions could barely keep up with him. _I'll never say this to her face, but if we get in trouble finding the blues I want her with me, alive!_ He growled softly. "Jinx…!"

Jinx was feeling slightly odd.

She hung in the mouth of the frog that'd caught her, her sword firmly in her hand, but only restricted around her waist. She was too large to fit into the amphibian's maw entirely, unlike some Minions. The frogs had them snared tightly, for very few had succeeded in clawing themselves out through the creatures´ throats.

But even though she would easily be able to free herself from the bouncing frog's grip… she didn't. She saw the algae-covered surface of the pipe passing her by with great clarity, but she beheld it without emotion.

_Poison…_

_When would this pass over? Or will I die in this state?  
><em> 

_I wouldn't like that.  
><em> 

_Would I?_

She felt the slippery tongue come loose. Then the frog opened its mouth and dropped her into the shallow water. Around her high walls led up to a hazy ceiling, dripping with murky water and dark slime.

In front of her, the Frog King towered over her, all grey-gleaming belly and bulging throat between giant webbed feet. His golden eyes looked down on her from great height. 

Jinx´ hand relaxed around the hilt of her sword.

Sayron and Scipio ran into the King's chamber at the same moment, just in time to see Jinx fall. Sayron immediately raised his sword and was about to storm forwards, but Scipio grabbed his arm. "No, my Lord!"

The Overlord stared at him with wide eyes for a moment, but then looked back at the gigantic frog. In the mean time, the remaining browns and greens spattered after him.  
>The King slightly opened his mouth and croaked softly. Even now it trembled through the room and ripples raced across the water. The smaller frogs had aligned in a circle along the walls, dropping their prey one by one. At that moment the King lowered himself between his muscular legs and bent over to his first victim. Jinx stared up at him, seemingly unharmed, but Sayron knew something was very, very wrong. He shook off Scipio and ran forward. "Jinx…!"<p>

Then the King's tongue shot out, thicker than a marble pillar, and his horde leader was yanked up. The largest maw of the Empire was shut and her limp body disappeared from sight.

To Jinx, her upward flight seemed to last forever.  
><em>This can't be…<br>Not with my horde still down there…  
>Not now… not this way… this makes no sense…<br>No…!_  
>But still, without being able to do anything about it, her world darkened and her breath was smothered in slime.<p>

Jinx… gone? 

Sayron stared up at the King for half a second. The frog licked his rubber lips and looked back, a strange, ancient wisdom in his golden eyes. A heavy croak wrung itself from the mouth.

Jinx couldn't be gone. Of course he could handle the Empire without her, but…

…but even now he became aware of the hubbub in his horde and he knew he couldn't channel his Minions´ rage in the right way like Jinx could…

…he gripped his sword more tightly and felt his eyes change colour. A more vibrant scarlet than the fires in Giblet's forge. A more raging fury than the Nordhaven inferno.

"_VESSPERION!_"

He and the Minions stormed forward, immediately followed by the frogs aligned along the walls. It became a chaotic charge, water and blood spraying up high around the King, whose webbed feet easily crushed groups of Minions. Their bones broke on the slimy stone bottom below the water's surface.

Sayron ran on, flinging frogs away to the left and right, tripping, sliding into the water and scrambling back to his feet… then a giant webbed foot smacked down beside him and a wave of slimy water flushed over him. He pushed himself up, his soaking sash sticking to his armour, and hacked away at the King's hind leg with his sword. It took surprisingly long to wound him and he could barely dodge the tongue in the time he needed. The third time the King was lucky. Fortunately, Sayron weighed quite a lot more than Jinx. The King only managed to lift him about a meter off the ground before his tongue lost its grip and the Overlord fell back into the water. The King planted his feet on both sides of Sayron and bent over. An enormous golden eye fixated him from the cocked head. The mouth opened slightly and a pale pink tongue licked out…

…and then Sayron realized the noise around him had turned to a sudden silence.

The King averted his eyes from the Overlord between his feet and very slowly turned his eyes to his own throat, bulging like a giant grey balloon. A strange, gurgling croak wrung itself from his half-opened mouth.

Then, very softly, a purple light started glowing within.

Sayron widened his eyes and barely realized they cooled to a hopeful orange. In his half-upright situation, he gripped his sword more tightly than ever before as the light increased in brightness.

The King's throat swelled some more, but only at a certain point. That came forward more and more, until it became apparent something inside wanted to get out… 

A muted scream started somewhere within the giant frog, but it wasn't the amphibian himself… 

"_Yeeeeaaaaaaaaahhh!_" 

The swelling burst open in a rain of dark blood. In the middle of the eruption, a sword's blade stuck out.

Sayron, still sitting between the King's front legs, quickly averted his head as a flood of dark blood flushed over him – he knew it was poisonous. He scrambled backwards and looked up at the King, just in time to see the blade zipping itself all the way down his throat. The frog gurgled and it was clear to the Overlord this was a dying breath.

Then, in a wave of blood, intestines and rubbery grey skin, his horde leader rolled out. Jinx was coughing and spitting and swearing, and she fell over twice before she could stay upright again. The second time she nearly skewered herself on her own sword. But she was alive. Of course she was alive.

Kniff ran forward, and at first Jinx pushed him away before she saw who it was. Her face was covered in blood, slime and half-digested frog food, but her eyes were shining. "I'm alive? I'm alive!"

Sayron blinked as he beheld the duo. First she survived a mermaid bite. Now a dive into the Frog King's blood. Was his horde leader as immune to poison as the greens?

Briefly, thoughts shot through his head – she was strong and tough like a brown Minion, she lobbed fire like a red… she could heal herself…

Then something slimy rubbed against his hand and those thoughts were wiped away. He looked down. Straight into a pair of bulging golden eyes.

The frogs of the Empire were all staring at him and Jinx.

The horde leader answered his gaze. "Just like the Spider Queen, ey? Which one of us is King now?"

"Me, I think," Sayron grinned. "Thank you."

"You're welcome." Jinx stepped away from the King's carcass. The frogs jumped towards Sayron. The Minions backed away slightly, but then it became apparent the amphibians were now part of the horde.

"Well, this is strange." Jinx looked around. "It'll make our journey easier, mind. Never would have thought to find allies with this lot."

Her gaze fell to Scipio. The large man stood leaning in the pipe they'd come from. "I don't have any light for you now, but we can see fine anyway." He gestured at the pipe invitingly. "Further in search of your missing demon clan?"

Sayron stepped forward. "Certainly."

Some time later, the darkness swallowed them once more, this time broken by the gleam of golden eyes and the sound of amphibian feet on metal.

Later…

A sound echoed through the dark pipe. Jinx suddenly was very glad Scipio´s torch had gone out, at least it couldn't betray them anymore. She looked down as she heard a spattering. All frogs leaped off. Apparently they weren't obedient enough to stay with them with those sounds ahead. Jinx smiled a crooked smile. _Maybe the blue Minions can train them like the greens trained the spiders, and we'll be able to put them to good use._

Blues…

Cautiously creeping forward through the ankle-deep water, Jinx started making out voices and recognizing words.

"…hear they're back on the program…"

"…get to make yourself useful, Old White…"

"...think I'm going to watch."

A gurgling voice answered shortly now and then, but so softly it was barely audible. Jinx stiffened. That voice resembled Mortis´. Could it be? That was another blue Minion talking…

"I think I'm going to watch. What do you think of that, Old White?"

It was a rotund man, clad in a second-hand suit of armour, but the damage could have easily been caused by the biting air down here in the sewers. He was grinning and facing one of the dripping walls of the small, square room in the middle of the pipe system, separated from it by rusty but still strong bars. On the other side of them was the creature he'd called Old White, in the shadows upon the enormous steel ball he was chained to.

The man outstretched a finger. "It'll be fun to watch them die again."

"I'm sure it'll be, Drusus. Humour is something you possess in large quantities," the creature answered in a soft, deep voice, gurgling slightly.

Behind the man his mates chuckled, sitting at a low table, playing cards in the light of a lantern. Drusus narrowed his eyes. "You never learn, do you? Do you want me to cut something else off?"

"I'd prefer it if you didn't." Old White shrugged, something about that movement not entirely right in the darkness that surrounded him. "But I think I won't be able to do much about it."

"Shall I handle the others, Drusus?" Another man stood up from the card game, a large curved dagger in his hand.

Old White fell silent. Amber eyes were lowered in the dark. On the other side of the room four more pairs stared into the gloom, backing away as the man approached them. Keys jingled. "This is going to be fun. What will it be this time? Fingers? Or something better? I've heard all internal organs can come to light without the patient dying." The dagger glistened as the blade lifted the chin of one of the four creatures. "I wonder if I could cut gills into your ne-" The man fell silent. A new colour was glistening upon his blade, a colour that absolutely wasn't present in the room. Purple.

The next moment the weapon spun from his grip in the explosion that blew his head off.  
>In the dark opening of the pipe leading to the rest of the sewers a figure stepped forward, rubbing her hands to lose the remaining sparks. The remaining men turned to her immediately, but from behind her rasping voices resounded and they quickly became battle cries. Two guardians yelled for reinforcements, but they'd never get to them in time. An enormous shadow raised an even bigger blade and was then wiped from view by another purple explosion. The creatures in the cages averted their eyes, used to the dark as they were.<p>

Then, just like that, it was silent.

Jinx extinguished the last sparks flying around her fingers. She looked up as she heard a soft, slightly gurgling voice.

"…Is it you, my Lord? At last?"

Only then she really saw the contents of the cages.

On rotting straw, surrounded by fish bones and chained to the dripping walls of the room were… they. That for which they'd left Everlight with such haste. The blue Minions. The last remaining clan, lost so long ago, so valuable.

However, there were only four of them and they looked hopeless. The glow of their large eyes was dim and not all of them even had two eyes. With all of them, their smooth skin was covered in scars. With three of them their ear webs were severely damaged or partly missing, the fourth missed all of his fingers on one hand.

Jinx stepped towards them and outstretched a hand through the bars. "What have they done to you..." She knew, putting one and one together. The blues had been here for years and in that time span their guards just had to notice the fact they could heal themselves and one another. Not many injuries were deadly for this clan and even then a blue Minion wasn't lost – every blue Minion could resurrect a dead clan member if his body was still intact. Or more or less intact.

"Where's the rest of the clan?" For a moment she feared this would be just like the way they'd found the greens, but then one of them raised his lifeless, non-blinking eyes to her. 

"Further into the system," the shivering blue spoke in a hopeless voice. "We're the resurrecters."

"We do most of the work after the Games," a deeper voice resounded from behind them. Sayron, Jinx and the others turned around.

On the other side of the room was another cage, they had to have passed it without really noticing. There was the Minion who'd probably spoken first of all, atop an enormous metal ball he was chained to. And he was a truly bizarre sight to behold.

His eyes were lifeless like those of the others, but even bigger. One of his ear webs had been completely torn apart before it had been cut up even further, and the other wasn't exactly intact anymore either. On his one shoulder were three gleaming scars, like a handprint, but on his other shoulder nothing was visible because he missed his right arm completely. Both of his middle toes, too, were missing. But the most striking was the colour of his skin. This Minion was almost white.

Around his neck was a blue shell. Jinx knew the meaning of that. "Blue leader," she spoke. The large eyes were turned her way and the Minion smiled. "You see that well. My name is Zap. I'm very glad to finally set eyes upon you. To what does the horde thank your company, young lady?"

"I've been travelling along for a while. I've heard much about you, Zap."

"Are there still Minions remembering the blue clan before we fled the other hordes in such a foolish way?" Zap smiled wryly. "Whatever you've heard, I don't deserve a good reputation."

Gnarl joined the conversation. "I don't want to tell him yet, Zap, but there was one who survived the disappearance of the Hive. Hylke and Gush died, but the third is still alive."

The white Minion frowned for a moment, but then he seemed to remember something. His already wide eyes widened even further. "Young Murk… is he still alive? Oh, the tragedy…" He seemed to forget his own situation completely for the moment. "So far from the Hive, for such a long time. How did he manage? But he was always the one with the most intimate bonds to death…"

"He calls himself Mortis these days. Many horde members thank their lives to him… multiple times over."

"I'd very much like to see him again." Zap looked up to the Overlord. "Master… I assume you are our new Master. I've served Lord Vessperion, and Lord Alcazar and many others before him. I'm a bit younger than Giblet, but just as loyal. The only problems are these chains." The white Minion outstretched his one hand and feet from his seat upon the iron ball in apology.

Jinx immediately ran to the other side of the room and snatched the keys from the dead hand of the man she'd decapitated. A pool of blood was still spreading from the stump of his neck – it hadn't been completely scorched shut by her magic. She first opened the chains of the four other blues. It surprised her to see them standing up slowly. Then she hurried back to Zap's cage. After a bit of fiddling she'd opened both his door and his chains.  
>Zap hoisted himself up by his iron ball and hesitantly tested his two-toed feet, with a bit more trouble than his clan members who had a more stable footing. Spink immediately supported him. The pale Minion looked to the side in surprise. "Spink?"<p>

"Still here," the old Minion with the hollowed pumpkin on his head rasped. His voice sounded slightly rawer than normal and behind his pumpkin his eyes seemed to glisten. "But why so white, Zap?"

"Let's just say I took a clan leader's responsibility."

The other blues staggered towards the horde and embraced Zap and each other. "He did almost all of the resurrections after the Games. I'm surprised he's got magic left," the Minion missing the fingers of one hand said.

"Thirteen years," Zap laughed incredulously, blinking as he looked up at Sayron and Jinx. "Ever since the moment we dived into the Tamesa with the Hive I've regretted my lack of self-control. The people here do that to you. The Arena was built especially for us, you know. We're magical in the most heathen meaning of the word and it was also possible to keep us alive forever. But now you're here, Master! And I see the other clans have also managed to reach the Netherworld… that's where your bastion is located, isn't it?"

"The Netherworld in all its glory," Sayron nodded. "Where is the Hive?"

"I fear I won't be able to lead you to her, Master. I haven't seen the Hive in years."  
>"Then we'll have to search," Jinx said determined. "We're getting you out of here… all of you."<p>

Scipio had kept to himself during the reuniting with the blues, but he looked up now. "That won't be easy…"

Indeed, it wasn't.

After some more pipes Scipio carefully led them through, they were suddenly looking out over an underground canal filled with stinking water, bordered by grey stone walkways on both sides. Both of them were packed with cages and copper jars. Some of them were surrounded by a multicoloured aura, some others resonated with strange sounds – gnome chittering, the buzz of fairy wings. From the larger cages came snorting and… crying? Some of the voices seemed human.

Gnarl let his eyes wander around through the mist pool. "The Empire gathered magical creatures from all over the lands here! They must be headed for the Arena above… but it seems much of their magic has been removed… that fairy glow isn't half as intense as usual, for example."

Kelda snorted. "Cowards. I appreciate a good hunt, a bit of bloodshed. But it has to be fair, as nature intended. Otherwise, what's the fun?"

A blue glow caught the eyes of Sayron and Jinx at the same moment. It shone into the darkness weakly, emanating from the other side of the canal, and it barely stood out in the gloom. "That must be the Hive!"

"All the way across the water," Sayron mumbled from the entrance of the pipe. He looked lower.

Gnarl had his comments at the ready immediately. "There's a raft, but I doubt whether the Minions you have with you now can push it. You need more of them, Sire."

Zap looked down at his feet. The middle toes were missing, and so were the webs that had connected them. "I fear I won't be able to actually swim ever again, Sire. They started with chopping off the most important parts." He nodded at the stump of his arm. "Maybe Gills, Flounder, Shark and Clam can help, but…"

"We were planning to get every blue Minion out of here anyway, weren't we, Lord?" Jinx asked sharply. Then she stepped forward alongside the canal.

Almost immediately, she noticed the void on her left. There was another large room. From atop the stone walkway, she could see the lower floor was flooded, but the water wasn't deep. She raised her head.

Along the ceiling, copper jars were rattling past on creaky rails. From within some of them resounded gurgling sounds that sounded very familiar to her.

She quickly scanned the surroundings, then saw some other jars which were emanating gnome chittering, tied together with a long piece of rope. Within two seconds she'd tied a square knot and flung it up. She managed to get her lasso around one of the hooks from which the jars were suspended. "Sayron! Catch!" She unhooked the nearest jar and lobbed it down. Every jar with the sound of blues coming from it followed. Some landed in the water, others rolled over the stones with loud clattering. For the time being, she didn't care if the Minions broke anything. They could heal it anyway.

The soft copper was no match for the Minions´ weapons, even if the lids were molten shut with only a small airhole in them. The blues climbing out were scarred, but far less than the five who'd served as personal toys for their guards. They even looked strong, very different from what Jinx had heard. These Minions had been thrown into the Arena many times over and had probably gotten more than enough experience.

Jinx threw down the last jar, while the free blues handled those in the water, and powerlessly looked on as the jars she'd missed were taken along over the canal. How many Minions was the Empire planning to use?

"We have enough for the raft."

She looked over her shoulder. "But we're freeing all of them."

"We'll try our best, but I don't think that's going to happen, Jinx."

Jinx looked at the horde, still tugging at various jars or whacking away at them with heavy weaponry. From some of them came no blue, but a fairy or gnome. Those were dispatched easily. Then she turned and flew off.

She ran over the stones and ignored the cages containing unicorns and strangers species. In some of them were elves or even humans. She ignored those, too. Maybe they'd lived close to her, but she was here for the Minions now.

She was aware of the fact Minions came after her and together they made quite a lot of noise as they spurted along the canal, thrashing and kicking open jars as they went, but she didn't stop. She was determined to free as many blues as possible as fast as she could. They wrung themselves out through the holes in their jars, cutting themselves on the cracked copper but immediately healing themselves again, and they hurried back to the Overlord or after her. Gurgling cries of triumph resounded through the stagnant air.

Then Jinx ran around a corner, away from the canal. And straight into someone she didn't want to meet right now.

It was a guard, but not in second-rate armour like the ones that'd been guarding Zap and the others. He widened his eyes, first in confusion, then in recognition. "So you were making all that racket… Men! I have the Purple Scourge!"

Jinx shot to the side and drew Scabies´ sword, but the guard had already grasped her arm and a second gripped her waist soon after. She struggled like a lunatic and managed to cut off some fingers, so the first guard had to let go. "Sayron!" she shouted. "I need a little help in here!"

Then she saw what was standing a few yards away, in the darkness. It was a giant cage, and what was inside was making more noise than Jinx herself.

It was a mountain of grey fur, five meters tall, with muscular arms like tree trunks. The knuckles touched the floor and one enormous yellow eye stared at her above a broad, sharp-fanged mouth.

She recognized that stare. This was – no doubt about it – the very same yeti that had chased her off the Nordbergian mountains.

"Ankhwoo!"

In the guardians´ grip, her eyes remained locked in the yeti's gaze. Arena fodder. She pitied the ones to fight him… or had already fought him. Apparently Florian Greenheart had failed to protect the creature from the Empire…

Then new, raspy shouts drowned out the yeti's racket and the guards were throttled by the horde from all sides. More men came running from the darkness, but there simply weren't enough. As Jinx yanked herself loose and freed the guard's intestines with one strike of the sword, she first realized the Emperor hadn't exactly protected the Hive very well…

From deeper into the darkness behind the yeti´s cage came the blow of a horn.

Jinx spun around. There, in the direction of the canal, came an answer at the moment the first hornblower was silenced. From beyond Sayron and Scipio, fighting closer to the water, suddenly sounded the splash of oars…

"Sayron! The Hive!"

The Overlord turned. His eyes widened. "They're rowing her down the canal!"

"After her, Sire! We can't lose her!"

Sayron ripped his sword from his last victim's chest and didn't even make an effort to wipe the blade clean. "We're taking the raft!" his voice thundered, echoing between the dripping stone walls. "Follow me!"

To the left and right Minions turned away from dead or dying victims. Some of them tried to get away, but had underestimated the men and were stabbed in the back at the last moment. Jinx swiped her blade around one last time and wanted to make off, but then she saw the blues running to the fallen Minions as fast as they could. Blue sparks danced through the dark, more than she'd ever seen with Mortis. Blood dried, wounds closed themselves and the dead Minions stood up again…

Without life force! Just like that!

_The blues really are irreplaceable_; Jinx though as she stumbled, turned and ran after Sayron. _Vessperion, I hope this ends well._

The glow of the Hive was dying over the water as they returned to the canal. Sayron, however, ran back to where they'd come from with great metal strides. The raft was still floating at its dock. "Push us," he ordered the blues. "Down the canal and after the Hive."  
>The brown and green hordes jumped onto the raft, pushing and shoving until they all fit more or less. Sayron, Scipio and Jinx stood at the front. The gathered blues jumped into the water and placed their hands against the back of the raft, pushing off with their webbed feet at the same time. The only one not swimming was Zap. His webless feet were useless and the old Minion would probably never brave a current again.<p>

Slowly but certainly the raft came into motion. It accelerated until it glided over the filthy water, casting waves in front of it. Sayron strained his eyes. The blue glow of the Hive became stronger, up ahead.

Then it was replaced with an orange light.

The blues kicked their feet more fiercely. As the raft reached the new light source it turned out to be a torch, attached to the wall. A row of them stretched out on both sides of the canal, along the walls, so the Hive´s glow was drowned out.

"They're lighting torches," Sayron growled. "Faster! We're losing her!"

Up ahead, the row of lights stopped. Once there the raft bumped against some sort of shore, turning out to lead up in the form of stairs. Jinx jumped off the raft first and ran up. At the top of the stairs was a pair of heavy wooden doors, but they weren't locked. She started pushing them open. Then Sayron was suddenly behind her and flung them open with one shove of his armoured hand.

Light flooded out.

Sayron´s eyes paled and Jinx turned white.

In front of their feet, a red carpet started, embroidered in a rich gold thread. It partly covered a veined white marble floor, the same material that'd been used for the walls. Pillars supported a high ceiling full of mosaics of landscapes and gods. Enormous, high windows let in the daylight with crushing force.

The first blues left filthy, wet web-prints on the carpet. They looked around them fearfully. 

"Sire," Scipio mumbled. "This is a part of the Imperial Palace…"

"Well, then this is our chance," Sayron growled. "Maybe Solarius´ head will roll over this marble today."

They walked across the carpet, not without awe inspired by their grand surroundings. Statues flanked their path, men with raised swords, and eventually a duo with crowns of leaves. Replicas of the Emperor himself. Beyond them, stairs led up.

Sayron and Jinx climbed them side by side. As they could see what awaited them at their top, Jinx held her breath for a moment.

A depth, full of seats, leading down to a round, sand-covered field…

"There's the Arena!" Juno exclaimed. "Oh, I'm going to miss seeing the Games…"

"Don't worry about that," Kelda bit back. "I´m sure there'll be enough haughty, stuck-up harpies to make up for your absence. Sayron, be careful, will y-"

A sharp sound interrupted her. It was the sound of slow, mocking applause.

Sayron, Jinx and the gathered Minions abruptly turned around. On the other side of the stairs was the entrance to another room. And in that entrance was a familiar face.

Marius Ovidius clapped his hands one more time and then spread them in a low bow. "Welcome, Lord Sayron of the Netherworld, and you, Purple Scourge. I'm sure you'll enjoy the Arena Games now there's such a beautiful thing at stake."

Sayron raised his sword. "Where's the Hive?"

"I knew you'd follow that little piece of junk. That plan couldn't fail. It's about to be destroyed in the Vat of the merciful Emperor, as every magical object or creature should be. It's become useless now it's served its role as bait." Marius stepped back.

Sayron followed, his eyes red with rage. Jinx nervously looked between them and shook her head. "Lord…"

Marius walked backwards into the room behind him. "The Games will have something wonderful at stake, Demon Lord! Far more valuable than the Hive… your life and the entire Netherworld."

A twin of Sentinels stepped out of the room on both sides of the Speaker. The dark blue robes stretched over horribly deformed bodies, different from anything Sayron had ever seen with the Sentinels. Their heads were asymmetrical and their backs were hunched. Beneath their gloves, some of their fingers were longer than others. 

"Brod, Angela, faithful friends," smiled Marius. "Bring him to his knees." 

The two Sentinels raised their hands and a flood of bloodred light like Jinx had never experienced before fell over them and the horde. The Minions screamed out in pain and many lost consciousness almost immediately. The pain was so terrible it took a short while for Jinx to actually feel it, but when she felt it, it was enough to do the same to her. The last she saw were two gleaming eyes beneath the hood of the shorter Sentinel. There seemed to be a film of tears over the nacre, but it could also just be her diminishing sight…

Sayron managed to resist. On one knee, but with clenched fists and trembling with strain, he looked straight at Marius. Next to his ear he could hear Gnarl shouting, but the connection was about to be broken by this amount of antimagic. "Master… Mast… M-"

As his advisor's voice died away, the Overlord felt his last shred of power evaporate. He fell over onto the red carpet with a thud, amidst his likewise fallen Minions.

"You'll make a splendid act at the Arena Games…"

**General: Master!**

**Kelda: Witchboy!**

**Gnarl: Sire!**

**Juno: Are there any chocolates left?**

**Furious glares**

**Juno: What? Screaming won't help him.**

**General: It's too far behind enemy lines to mount a rescue operation. We need to wait till we have a fix on them. Then we'll send in a Gate and get them out of there. I suppose I better tell Velvet her daughter's been taken by the Empire, again. Please review readers**


	21. Against all Odds

**General: Okay we're back online. My spies in the Empire have confirmed that the Overlord and Jinx are both alive.**

**Kelda: Oh thank you. But if they are still alive, then where are they?**

**General: You are better not knowing.**

**Kelda: How long till we can get a signal to his helmet?**

**General: Gnarl and I are working on it, in the meantime let me get the disclaimers done. I own nothing of this story except the segments, the story, the whole story and nothing but the story, and Jinx, belong to Sunjinjo on deviantart. She is the true genius behind this story so major respect to her if you please. Now, let's see what's going on.**

**Against All Odds**

A pounding sound woke him. The second thing that came through was the pain.

His entire body was raw. His armour scraped across bruises, cuts and bumps, quite a lot of muscles seemed to be stretched too far and his head was almost bursting apart. The pounding sound turned out to be his own heart, thumping in his rushing ears.

Lord Sayron felt wrecked.

He raised his glowing eyes. He was lying on a stone floor, partly covered in sand. In front of him were bars. They´d put him in a cage.

He grasped for the hilt of his sword, to discover his weapon was gone. Of course. Into the Arena unarmed, as fit for a captive or a slave.

Sayron uncertainly grabbed at the bars and managed to get hold of one of them. He painfully climbed to his feet.

Maybe he could melt them with magic.

He raised a hand, but all he could produce were a couple of blue flashes. Of course. The magical shield.

Where were the Minions? Where was Jinx? They couldn´t have stood up against the Sentinels, they had to be trapped in here somewhere as well…

At that same moment, the bars rolled down, into the stones. Sayron staggered out of his cage.

Now he realized the rushing sound in his ears was actually something quite different than his own blood. It was the sound of hundreds of cheering people.

A single, deafeningly amplified voice clearly recognizable as Marius Ovidius´ sounded above them all. "Look at that, ladies and gentlemen, a magnificent explosion and he hasn´t got a scratch himself, beautifully done for an uncivilized Ruborian savage!" The cheering grew louder. Sayron swaggered towards the sound. New bars isolated him from a seemingly outstretched plain of sand, where a group of many-legged creatures was scrambling about. Some hurried away, others were charging towards a certain point. That point was a boy, about twenty, with a dark skin, covered in scratched metal leg guards, a single arm guard and a damaged chainmail. Apart from that he was only wearing rags, leaving bare quite a lot of his gleaming skin. His chest, legs and unprotected arm were covered in scars and as he turned Sayron could see the same applied to his face. He was carrying a large trident and a net, which he flung around wildly to throw it over two of the creatures at once, swift as a snake.

Sayron focused on the boy´s opponents. They were enormous beetles with a yellowy abdomen and rustling shields. Scattered through the Arena the Overlord could see scorch marks in the sand. He kept standing by holding one of the bars and let all this come through. They let the Ruborian boy fight against the bomber beetles from the same realm. The ancient Ruboria mainly consisted of deserts populated by the most fearsome creatures of the planet, among which these explosive insects and the mighty sand worms.

The boy, who appeared to be an experienced Arena warrior, stuck his trident through the net and jumped back with agility as the beetles exploded. The bang resounded through the entire Arena and the audience applauded.

Sayron blinked. As he´d jumped back, the boy had snatched his net away with his trident, so he could use it again. He was good…

"_You´ll make a splendid act at the Arena Games…_"

The Overlord took a deep breath. He knew he´d probably be next.

He turned so he could lean against the bars. As matters were now, he wouldn´t survive much of what the Empire could throw at him. 

Then his eye caught a couple of copper jars against the far wall, beyond the cage he´d come out of. He slowly walked towards them. At his approaching footsteps, gurgling voices emanated from inside. 

Blue Minions… 

He clenched an armoured fist around one of the jars and used all the force he had left. The lid flew off. 

A blue Minion wrung himself out and folded his webbed hands. "Greetings, Lord." He let his round eyes slide over Sayron, and without wasting time with words, he laid both of his hands on the Overlord´s arm.

Blue sparks flew out and rushed into Sayron´s veins. Immediately, his wounds were healed and his head stopped hammering. His strength returned. He stood up straight. "Thank you." 

"No thanks, my Lord. Is there a chance we´re getting out of this?" 

"As long as I´m breathing, there is. Does the Hive still exist?" 

"If she´d been destroyed we´d be in a place from where there is no resurrection. Not all is lost." 

"And the last beetle bites the dust! The savage triumphs over the beasts!" it resounded through the bars. Sayron and the Minion looked up at once.

Marius yelled over the hurricane of new applause with his amplified voice. "And now, ladies and gentlemen, the main act. We have a real treat for you this time." 

Sayron´s heartbeat increased. His eyes ignited. He smashed his fist through another jar, freeing a second Minion. 

"He´s a vile magic user." 

A third and fourth Minion joined his horde. Sayron knew he didn´t stand the shadow of a chance with blues, reborn though he was feeling now. 

"A mass murderer!" shouted Marius.

Sayron grinned involuntarily. "Do you want me to prove it again, Marius?" he quietly spoke to himself.

"Ladies and gentlemen, he is the enemy of everything you hold sacred and dear!" The Speaker paused. The audience was deathly silent. Sayron clenched his fists, a good blue horde behind him, tall and proud behind the bars.

Then they rolled down and nothing stood between him and the open plain of the Arena. Marius´ voice thundered down upon him and the audience went mad. "_He´s the Demon Lord of Nordberg!_"

Sayron stepped onto the sand with as much dignity and menace as he could manage and resisted the urge to stare up and turn around. The seats, filled with Imperials, towered above him on all sides. They were completely stuffed with a sea of white togas and the sun glistened upon gold and jewels everywhere.

Right in front of him, pillars of red marble rose up. They supported an enormous balcony, hung with red banners with golden suns. In the middle between the emblems, a figure leant over the balustrade and even from here Sayron could see the wide red cloak, the richly embroidered tunic and the crown of golden leaves. 

"Solarius!" the Overlord roared.

The Emperor straightened out. A moment later, something long and glistening tumbled down from the balcony to bury itself into the sand at the base of the pillars. From across the Arena Sayron recognized the object – it was his sword.

Marius was standing next to his ruler, with seemingly nothing to amplify his voice so monstrously. Sayron had, by now, figured out the Empire didn´t despise magic as much as they said they did. He´d bet the Darklords´ helmets at least half of their realm was built on the exact same as his.

"Let´s rile him up a bit!" the Speaker yelled. "There´s nothing as amusing as an angry savage, as we saw with the Ruborian. Bring in his little imp friends."

Sayron nearly tripped in his run to the other side and his sword. They´d left his Minions alive!

But where was the Purple Scourge?

On both sides, gates in the Arena wall rolled open. Minions stumbled out, unstable and wounded. Most of them dragged themselves along and left behind bloody trails of varying size. Sayron recognized Stripe; almost his whole face was covered in dried blood and one of his eyes was black and swollen.

Then figures jumped after the Minions. They were Imperials with the best armour and black-plumed helmets – probably Arena guards and formidable opponents by the look of them. They were carrying swords on their belts, but in their hands were spears and those spears came down upon the Minions trying to get away from them. Their screams mingled with the cheering of the audience.

Sayron widened his eyes. Did they give him Minions just to let him watch them die?  
>Then he looked back. The front most of the blue Minions, a large individual with ear webs continuing far down his chin and a large scar across his chest, was looking at him grimly. "Into action, Lord?"<p>

"Into action!" the Overlord nodded hurriedly. He watched the blues sprinting forward as their webbed feet threw the dry sand up high. The Arena guards backed away and posted themselves next to the gates. They wouldn´t attack him, Sayron realized. That was the task of disposable opponents. It seemed a good idea to not attack them, either, before he´d analysed the situation fully…

…once he had his Minions back.

The blues had reached the heaps of dead Minions. Some were still half alive and dragged themselves towards the blues. The sand around the gates was drenched with blood. There were browns and greens, practically everyone who´d survived the journey through the sewers.

Then the blue sparks began flying and many of the fallen spontaneously climbed back to their feet. Stripe spat blood, but then growled menacingly at the people sitting above him.

Some ladies shrieked.

"This despicable creature that hails from the bowels of the earth itself killed my own dear brother Borius!" Marius raged on the Imperial balcony. "And he slaughtered our most noble governess Cardea of Everlight!"

The hordes gathered around Sayron. The largest blue Minions supported two younger greens singlehandedly. The Overlord sprinted on towards his sword, reached the red pillars and pulled it from the sand. His fingers closed around the familiar hilt.

"He is responsible for the Great Cataclysm and the magical plague," Marius spoke directly above him. Sayron looked up with flaming eyes and caught the cold stare behind the monocle. The Emperor looked down as well, but his face was emotionless and his eyes were so dark no expression was to be found even there.

"But here in this Arena, ladies and gentlemen, the Demon Lord of Nordberg will face the consequences of his actions."

"We´ll give him a show," the largest blue Minion gurgled confidently.

"However, we are not unsporting, ladies and gentlemen. We´ll even let him use his magic to serve as a warning about this diabolical practice. Much good may that do him." The Speaker straightened out, took his hands off the balustrade and clapped twice.

"Let the Games begin."

The cheering of the audience died away. Suddenly Sayron caught another sound; that of thumping against wood. He looked around and saw four wooden gates in the Arena wall, not that far away. They were trembling beneath the violent force of something on the other side, something that wanted out. He planted his feet firmly into the sand. "Here we go," he whispered.

The gates opened. That same moment four snowy white flashes shot out and straight for him.

They were unicorns, their heads low and their mouths dripping with yellow foam. The deadly ivory horns were aimed for him and the horde and before Sayron could blink his eyes, the magical horses rammed them. Some unwary Minions were skewered immediately and there was a wave of cheering in the audience as new blood splattered into the sand. 

The Minions had never fought unicorns before, but they recovered miraculously. Very soon, Jagged and Whisper flung themselves onto the back and around the throat of the front and long red strokes appeared across the white pelt. The unicorn uttered a low sound and kicked its hind legs. Two others reared up and crushed careless Minions with their hooves as they came down. Sayron knew the horns and hooves of unicorns were harder than those of normal horses, probably thanks to the magic in their veins. He also noticed the wounds Jagged and Whisper had dealt were slowly starting to heal even now.

"More Minions! At them, now!" Sayron outstretched a hand and flung his reborn lightning into the direction of the stampeding magical beasts. One of the unicorns slowed and came to a thrashing halt. The Overlord brought his sword down and cut through much of the elegant neck. The unicorn fell down and the Minions finished the job.

More unicorns galloped into the Arena, but the Minions ran straight at them and flung their claws, weapons and teeth through the white pelt until it wasn´t white anymore. The blues turned to the fallen with great efficiency so his horde remained intact. As Sayron straightened out and ripped his sword from the belly of a third unicorn he suddenly saw more jars standing along the far walls of the Arena, reinforced with metal bands but still shaking beneath the violence of the contents. He realized the Empire probably wanted to finish off every living Minion together with him, in one gigantic show. Maybe the audience had prepared for a fight that lasted all day, or longer… They had all the time in the world and were more than willing to watch until he died.

Well, he wouldn´t grant them any rest if that was the case.

He ran along the Arena walls and crushed the steel bands and the soft copper beneath it with his much stronger arcanium sword. More browns and greens joined the horde. They were the weaker ones. Sayron recognized Minc, Kniff and Stabbit. The latter had multiple scars across his whole chest, so many it seemed as if his heart had been cut out many times over, but still the wounds had healed…

"See how the magical beasts lust for the fight!" Marius´ voice resounded.

"He sure can fight," Sayron caught on the seats above him as one of the surviving unicorns wrestled him against the Arena wall and the Overlord clasped his armoured hand around the beast´s jaw. An enormous tug, and the neck broke with a loud crack. "That´s what a real man looks like…"

Sayron halted, panting heavily, as the unicorn slid out of his grasp and thudded into the sand. He barely realized he and his Minions had killed all of them. He could hear Marius grinding his teeth on the balcony, however. "Let´s make the next round a bit more difficult, ladies and gentlemen," the Speaker spat. "Bring her in."

Sayron abruptly looked up. With a loud rattle another gate in the Arena wall opened.

"Ladies and gentlemen, apart from the Demon Lord of Nordberg our infinitely wise Emperor has another surprise for you today…"

The Minions looked around them nervously. Sayron gripped his sword more tightly than ever.

"She, too, is a despicable practiser of the magical arts. She is the much sought-after right hand of the Demon Lord…"

Sayron clenched his teeth. They had Jinx.

"A halfblood witches´ spawn, returned from the bowels of the earth where she forged an alliance to the darkness, I give you the Purple Scourge!"

The Purple Scourge!

The ears of multiple Minions flew up at hearing that name, but there was one whose tuque hat was nearly lifted off his head. Kniff had been standing close to Sayron, but now he sprinted across the Arena so fast he tripped over his own feet as he came to a standstill. Some others hadn´t hesitated either. He looked into the gloomy catacombs expectantly, his claws twitching with worry.

As Jinx entered the Arena it was with limp arms. Her head lay on her chest, so her face was obscured, and she was staggering as if she was drunk. Kniff immediately grabbed her, and if he and some others hadn´t supported her she´d surely have fallen.

She´d clearly been tortured. In some places the blood came leaking through her clothes. They´d taken everything Aurelian had given her and dressed her up in Arena-equipment, a chainmail, a leather breastplate and a single arm and leg guard. The damage, however, had already been done.

Kniff reached up and pushed away her hair. His yellow eyes widened.

One side of her face had been totally dislodged, as if she´d been repeatedly been hit by a hammer. Her right eye lay in the socket in a strange way and with a milky hue, with a pink haze of burst veins below that. Her cheekbone had been crushed and her jaw was broken. There were four slashes across her cheek that went so deep Kniff, upon looking closer, could see her teeth through the flesh. The wounds seemed to be dealt by claws, or nails. Her other eye was black and as good as shut.

It was no wonder she was staggering, for one of her kneecaps was clearly dislodged. The Minion could also see her left arm had been broken in three places. Marius had completely raged out on her.

But even now the blue Minions hurried towards her. A swarm of blue sparks surrounded the mangled horde leader. Her arm jolted and creaked as the bone wrung itself into the right positions, her kneecap slid back and her face twitched and changed form as her cheek closed itself and her skull healed.

Jinx breathed in, with a rasping sound. Her eyes focused. Her right eye was alright again, but there were large scars across half of her face. The new ones on her body stood out far more than the scars she´d acquired up to now. "Kniff…?"

"Still alive," the Minion answered. He looked up nervously. "But not for long."

"That´s not the right attitude," the horde leader mumbled.

"Now the Purple Scourge seems to be battle-ready…" Marius chuckled for a moment. "Ladies and gentlemen, the demoness in human form now knows the meaning of pain. But she still has much to learn. Give them our jewels, gentlemen. And while you´re at it, show the audience what happens to bad slaves."

Jinx looked up as she heard the rattling of metal bars. On Sayron´s side rose a roar she remembered from the Heartland, brainless and insane, like the sound of grass bears but from a human throat. They´d unleashed the Gargantuans.

More gates rolled open, and smaller figures entered. Humans. Indeed, former slaves from the slums by the look of them. Some of them still wore the richer clothing of villa slaves. There were even some dancers who reminded Jinx of Vesta, girls who´d probably grown too mature to continue dancing but weren´t given another task by their masters. Marius did pay a good price for Arena fodder.

As the Arena was filled with their opponents, Sayron and Jinx called the Minions towards them. Jinx slowly drew the Arena sword they´d given her and weighed it in her hand. Not an ideal weapon compared to the daggers she was used to, and certainly not perfect compared to her ropes. But she´d have to use it. This was about survival.

"We´re getting out of this," she spoke. The Minions´ ears moved slightly. "We´ll see the Netherworld again."

"We´ll never see him again."

Deep below the cities of man, where daylight never showed its face and the only light came from lava, torches and magic, was an ancient grey Minion sitting hunched over a pool of black mist. Even the feared yellow pinpricks of eyes didn´t pierce the darkness now. His ears, however, were stubbornly pointing upwards and his fists were clenched. The one who´d spoken was the woman on his right hand, stomping her feet so violently the mist trembled. "We´ll never see him again… and what will happen to us then?"

"Mistresses of a fallen Master are allowed around for long enough to see if they´re pregnant, if not, the Tower is rid of its inhabitants and we´ll start the search for a new Master," Gnarl spoke in an emotionless voice. He raised his eyes to Juno. "But I don´t think it will get that far, my lady. Lord Sayron is tougher than you think."

"He is," the other woman on the advisor´s left hand growled. Kelda´s hands were clenched into fists as well, so tightly her nails dug into the palms of her hands.

"Of course we´ll see him again, you stupid wench. He´s a fighter. He´s a Nordbergian!" Her eyes flashed with pride. "When he was little he was already wrestling down seal mothers!"  
>The three fell silent, as silent as the Minions in the throne room. Their ears were hanging down limply. Gnarl, however, refused to show what he knew they were going through despite their own words. Sayron´s signal wouldn't return for some time. He was stuck on an island amidst an ocean of antimagic. He´d been in Imperial hands for two days now. Two days on the edge of a dark mist pool, while Kelda didn´t leave his side and Juno, if she came down, was a nerve wreck.<p>

Sayron, Jinx, and the Blue Hive. There was quite a lot at stake in these Games.

It was a good thing Jinx had drawn her sword, for before she even knew it she had to swing it around sideways to keep the first attackers off her. She caught the fact the first round had consisted of unicorns, but it became very clear Marius was tightening his fist now. This might be slaves, they´d been equipped with sloppy weapons and armour but most of all, there were very many of them. He probably had brought in all of his Arena warriors, voluntary or not. There were people with a typical Nordbergian appearance, elves clearly caught directly on Everlight and shipped to this mainland, all the many peoples from the slums…

…a Gargantuan stormed past with a deafening roar, five Minions on his back among which a green who´d been crushed against a wall so hard all of his bloody bones stuck through his ripped skin, though he managed to keep himself in place because his claw knives were buried through the creature´s armour so deeply…

…the magical thunder rumbled as Sayron electrocuted seven slaves at once…

…her sword pulled swathes of light through the air, diminishing in brightness as the blade became covered in human blood…

…only as her muscles started protesting did she realize how long she´d been tangled up in battle and still the Arena was filled with screaming people and Minions…

…and then suddenly there was a trident stuck in her shoulder.

She swirled around, panting, her face covered in blood, not all of it from others. The three razor-sharp points were retracted and new blood defiled her armour.

The one holding the weapon had a gleaming, dark skin and a messy black head of hair. His eyes were glistening surprisingly blue.

A part of Jinx´ mind registered his proud stance. This was no slave. This was a trained Arena warrior. And above that, he was Ruborian.

The Ruborians had always been a proud people, she knew that. However, the Cataclysm had brutally ended their reign in the northern part of their desert kingdom. Twenty years ago the Wasteland swallowed the mountains that held the source of their holy river Kemetis, changing the river from a bringer of life to a bringer of death and destruction. The main part of their realm collapsed. Many of the survivors had sought a better life in the south, deeper into the desert, but there were others travelling to the north… into Imperial lands. Weakened and bereft of all, the former great leaders and their people had knocked on the growing Empire´s door, which had by then taken over the cities of the elves from the cut down Old Forest of Evernight and added both Nordberg and Everlight to her colonies, and they´d been welcomed with open arms… only to be put to work as slaves, servants or, in this case, Arena entertainment. This boy had to have come to Arcadiopolis as a baby, or he´d been born here, much like Jinx herself.

All this flew through her head in the few seconds she needed to raise her sword and thrust it into his direction. He, however, turned himself out of her reach, swift as a dancer, and jabbed his trident after her so she could barely dodge it. The points made holes in the Arena sand instead of her back. Around her the chaos raged on mercilessly, with such fierceness she didn´t even recognize the Minions storming past.

She struck at the boy again, but in vain. He really was fast.

"That´s no good weapon for you," his rich Ruborian accent rang out, to her surprise. "What do you normally fight with, Purple Scourge?"

To her even greater surprise, Jinx actually answered. "Ropes," she called back, "improved with Netherworld metal. I could have killed you easily by now!"

"I think not," the boy grinned. "_I_´m planning to kill _you_." His trident shot out to her chest, but she beat it away with her protected arm. Then the boy´s fist shot out and struck the right side of her face, only just healed after the torture of the previous day. Jinx staggered and briefly fell to one knee. Long enough for the Ruborian to put his trident to her throat and lift her chin with it.

Jinx looked at him with grey eyes full of pain, but then her expression changed. The boy´s blue eyes filled with confusion for a moment, but then it was his turn to be in pain. Stabbit had thrown himself onto his back.

The green Minion had been having a great deal of fun in the Arena. There was no shortage of things he could mutilate and kill and so his skin wasn´t green anymore – he was literally covered in blood, as much as when he´d have been bathing in it. Pieces of unicorn pelt, human flesh and even bone were stuck between his claws and teeth and his eyes were shining with demonic battle rage. Fever wasn´t there to temper him, and that meant he was raging about just as much as he liked. The Ruborian boy had enough reason to scream, but to Jinx´s surprise he managed to reach backwards far enough to fling the green over his head and into the sand. Stabbit looked up at Jinx with a gaze that made even her back away slightly, but then the black-lined eyes shot back to the Ruborian. The trident had run him through, the points sticking into the sand below his body. A screech wrung itself from Stabbit´s throat. Then, however, the wound began to shine with a greenish light and the Minion started to push the trident out of his body with his clawed feet.

"What kind of demon is this?" he boy snarled. "The rest died just fine!"

"This one´s not exactly average," Jinx managed to utter as she took the opportunity to heal her face and some other wounds. She raised her sword, planning to add a fatal wound to the collection of bloody scratches Stabbit had dealt to the boy´s back. The boy hesitated, not sure whether to protect himself from Stabbit or rip his trident out to attack Jinx. Then that decision was made for him.

A thundering roar announced – too late – that a Gargantuan had decided to lay his ramming course straight through Jinx. She was flung away for meters, against another man´s back, his skin as dark as the blue-eyed boy's.

Lying in the sand on her back, dazed as she was, Jinx noticed there weren´t as many people left in the Arena – not live ones, that was. Almost all of the elves were dead, and the people from Nordberg and the Empire itself as well. The last remaining warriors were the ones with a dark skin and black hair… the Ruborians. Of course the almost unbeatable Gargantuans were still present as well, storming through the Arena again and again, trampling everyone and everything in sight and crushing the dead bodies beneath their armoured feet. The blue Minions flitted between the wounded in small groups, healing or resurrecting the Minions who could still be saved wherever they could. Sayron was standing in the middle of the ring, entangled in battle with three Ruborians and a Gargantuan. That last one had caused Sayron´s armour to be dented inwards on the right side of his chest, so he had trouble breathing. His crushed shoulder had been healed by the blues by now.

The blue-eyed boy stepped back into view, towering over her with his hands on his hips. Vaguely, the horde leader could hear Stabbit screaming, in such a way it was clear someone else was cutting him to pieces now.

"May I know the name of the one that kills me?" she heard herself say.

"My name is Seffec abd-Napata." The trident was lifted. "And I´m sorry."

The weapon came down, but it came down in the sand. Jinx had rolled out of the way with great speed, jumped up and now hit the boy against his head with the hilt of her sword with such force he fell over himself. Immediately, her foot was placed upon his chest. "Why are you sorry to kill me, o Seffec? Personally, I have no trouble running you through with this weapon right now." She tried not to look at his eyes so much – those were far too bright, too blue…

The boy struggled, but this was the foot with which she´d held Stripe in place long enough to become a horde leader. "I want to bring down the Emperor. You´re known far and wide for desiring the same. It´s a pity we´re forced to attack each other with their weapons and an even greater pity we´re almost at the bloody end of this battle." He looked at the trident, fallen uselessly into the sand out of his reach as Jinx had rammed him down. "I shouldn´t be fighting with that thing, as you shouldn´t be fighting with an Imperial blade."

"The Purple Scourge appears to be in conversation, ladies and gentlemen," Marius sneered. "I wonder if the Ruborian´s tribe members have seen it."

Jinx looked up. Around her, the Ruborians were still at battle with the Minions, and three of them still had their weapons aimed for Sayron as well. But some, who had the chance, looked to her and Seffec at times. And they did nothing to help the boy.

She looked back into the blue eyes. Seffec grinned. "Kill me if you can, Purple Scourge."

A shade of a plan… an idea…

_Vesta wasn't exactly satisfied with her job either._

_Pity it would barely be better under Sayron's reign, rather worse... but that wouldn't be her problem anymore!_

__Unless..._ a small voice in her head said, but a hand on her bare shoulder silenced it._

Slaves. Arena warriors. Seffec still smiling at her, even though her foot carrying her full weight was upon his chest and she still had her sword raised, ready to strike.

She stepped off him.

The Ruborian lay there for a split second, but then shot up as fast as a snake. In a flash he had his trident back in his hand and aimed at her. He raised the weapon and thrust it forward.

After which he let go and it flew over her head. Jinx spun around and saw it bury itself into the unprotected neck of the Gargantuan still threatening Sayron.

She turned back to Seffec, her eyes wide, her breath in incredulous bursts.

The boy outstretched his hand in the gesture of the Ruborian _huffal_, the equivalent of shaking hands. Jinx, who knew the greeting, answered the gesture by stroking the palm of her hand along his. Then they both turned to the remaining warriors in the Arena. Thus far, the Ruborians and the Minions appeared to be of about the same strength, for there were almost no deaths by the account of the other.

Jinx put her hands to her mouth. "We have an alliance! Stop killing the Ruborians, guys!"

Sayron spun around. "_What?_"

"Trust me, Lord! Have I ever disappointed you?" She was aware Seffec was shouting at his own people in their language, and realized that, young as he might be, he had a high status amongst them. More so, as she looked at him she knew very surely he was their leader. It was just as probable as a human horde leader. Just as probable as an alliance between Minions and Ruborians under the eyes of the Overlord and the Emperor.

She looked up and saw Marius gasping for breath on the balcony, simply unable to grasp the fact both parties were now cooperating against the third and brought the Gargantuans down together.

Arena swords buried themselves in the enormous warriors´ flesh, and not long after that, there were survivors left in the Arena, but none of them tried to kill the others. The Speaker appeared to be choking on his own disbelief and rage. Next to him, the Emperor stood deathly still and emotionless.

Then Marius grasped next to him in a wild movement and flung something over the balcony´s edge. Jinx´ eyes widened. It was a rope – two ropes! Not her own ones, as they´d been in the Netherworld since she'd entered Drearius´ villa, but they were sturdy ropes!  
>Before she knew what she was doing she was sprinting across the sand, ignoring everything around her, and she flung them around her shoulders. "Thank you, Marius!" she shouted up. "You´d better have something good for me, because I´m really getting in the mood for..."<p>

The Speaker´s amplified voice blew her words away. "_Bring in Ripped Wing!_"

In the echoes of that cry a buzz rose from the audience. Shouts and clapping resounded across the seats as a large gate in the Arena wall slowly rolled open. Jinx turned to Seffec. "What´s Ripped Wing?"

The Ruborian´s eyes were fixed on the opening gate. "If I´m to judge you by what I´ve heard, Scourge, I think you´re the right one to face him. Marius didn´t give you back your preferred weapon for nothing."

"This is no weapon! I´m used to spikes of Netherworld arcanium! I can only _climb_ with this!"

"Defeat Ripped Wing and climb up to the Emperor," was the rushed answer as Seffec took a few steps back. Jinx saw almost everyone in the Arena did so, even some Minions. She exchanged glances with Kniff as he came standing right next to her. The Minion was bleeding from a number of wounds and it was clearly visible his foot had been re-attached by the blues. Still, he was smiling.

"Getting out," he spoke between clenched teeth. "Feel it."

"I -"

Something moved within the Arena dungeons. Something huge.

Then it burst into the ring in a cloud of disturbed sand.

Jinx opened her eyes wide as she realized what this was. It had a shabby, grey-brown fur with darker stripes, spanning over protruding ribs painfully taut. The rounded spines led up to an angular head with enormous pointy ears, an upturned nose and a mouth full of clearly carnivorous teeth. The hind legs were short, but ended in sharp claws that would be able to effortlessly tear her apart. But the front legs…

This creature wasn´t meant to dwell on the ground. The front legs had stunningly long fingers. This was a giant bat with a wingspan of at least fourteen meters. But, in the end, this was the Empire.

The webs between the bat´s fingers had been cut away, so only the skeleton of his wings remained. The animal tried to spread his wings to seem bigger even now, but he did so without moving any air. He´d been chained to the ground without any chains at all.

Something within Jinx stung with pity, even though the bat was looking at her, as front most of the group, with a look in his eyes that could only be called murderous.

Ripped Wing came down upon his knuckles, lowered his head and screeched. Jinx clasped her hands over her ears in the pain her eardrums managed to make of that sound. As the sound died away, she took the ropes off her shoulders with familiar movements.

"We´re getting out of this," she repeated Kniff´s words. "I´d like to dance with you, flightless flyer." She ran for the bat. Immediately, the beast lowered his head even further and bared his teeth. In a lightning-fast movement throwing the sand up even higher he thrust forward, and Jinx managed to roll away just in time as the lethal jaws snapped shut. It was apparent Ripped Wing could swallow her in two bites and he was starved enough to do it as well.  
>She´d already sheathed her sword. Both of her hands were free and it was not half a second later that one of her ropes shot out to the beast´s neck like a whip. Pull it taut, feet lifting off the ground…<p>

_Finally…_

Under the eyes of the Ruborians, the Minions and the Overlord Jinx swept through the air, flung about by the enraged movements of the bat. She pulled herself out of range of his teeth and landed on his lower back, close to the claws of his hind legs. The beast tried to kick her off him, a move that could have ripped her stomach open with ease, but the horde leader pulled herself forward again, closer to the back of the head. A heartbeat later she was sitting behind the huge ears, in the greasy, longer fur in his neck. Ripped Wing tried to bite behind him, but couldn´t turn his head far enough. This way, his jaws did come close enough to Jinx for her to throw a rope around them.

A suddenly silenced screech forced itself from the sharp-fanged mouth as it was snared shut. The muscles with which the bat opened his mouth appeared to be weaker than the ones with which he closed it. Jinx let her second rope join the first and pulled them taut with all her might. Then she planted a hand against the back of the head and gave the beast a good magical shock. His knuckles were scythed away from under his body and Ripped Wing thudded down into the sand.

The audience cheered wildly. Jinx looked up at the Imperial balcony – Marius was almost foaming at the mouth. A crooked grin pulled up the corners of her mouth. "Boys," she called down to her cheering horde. "Let the blues forward, will you."

Sayron widened his eyes as he realized what she was planning. "No, Jinx! I´m not going to let you do this! Kill him!"

Jinx looked at him for the briefest moment and shook her head. "No. That´s what _they_ want." She gestured up at the balcony. "Please, Lord. Have I ever disappointed you?" she repeated.

Sayron fell silent and let the blues pass. In the meantime, Ripped Wing came back around, but Jinx kept him down with her magic as she was still sitting on his neck. The Minions gathered around the skeletal remains of his wings, spread out in the sand.

Blue sparks swarmed out along the fingers. And the webs, dark brown and leathery, started to heal.

Ripped Wing, his head forced down, tried to look to the sides but could only turn his eyes from left to right. The intonation of the audience changed.

"What are they doing?"

"Look! Look! Those wings are coming back!"

And the slightly more intelligent people… "He´ll be able to fly again…"

"Run!"

"Remain calm!" thundered Marius. "Let the Eradicators into the Arena!"

"Boys!" Jinx shouted. "This is your party!" As she looked up from the healing wings she saw Sayron and the horde had already leaped forwards, ready to face the armoured giants. The fight was considerably easier now Sayron was there in person, and not in the shape of a Minion like that day on Everlight. The blue lightning appeared to be conducted by copper very well. And the magical cannons didn't affect the Ruborians…

"Seffec," Jinx whispered. She grinned. What an addition!

Ripped Wing let out a strange little sound, vibrating from his shut jaws. She looked down. A large, yellowy brown eye looked back. Jinx carefully laid a hand on the fur between the ears, without shocking the bat this time. "You´ll fly again," she said softly. "Please don´t thank me by eating me, Wing." She looked to the side. The blues were almost done, the webs almost connected again. She could see the veins writhe underneath the thin skin as the system was being fully healed. She only hoped his flight muscles were still working properly.

The sparks died away. The Minions nodded at her and stepped back. Then it became apparent the bat had been very well able to move during the process, because he climbed back up slowly and carefully and uncertainly shifted his wing fingers. Jinx quickly let herself slide down and took her ropes off his jaws along the way.

The enormous beast shuffled around uncertainly, looking to both sides to his healed wings. Then he looked straight at Jinx again. Around her resounded the clash of weaponry and quite a lot of screaming, both of the fighting and the audience, but she didn´t seem to hear it as well as usual. She nodded at the bat, and smiled. As he spread his wings she didn´t even back away.

Ripped Wing, whose name would never fit him again, flapped his wings and rose from the sand. Minions and humans shielded their eyes as the grainy clouds swallowed them. Then the bat ascended above them and circled up through the Arena, his head held high and his jaws open in an exhilarated cry of triumph…

Noblemen and slaves, even Marius and the Emperor staggered back and almost trampled each other in their haste to get away. Still, one of them couldn´t prevent himself from being plucked from the seats by the starving flyer. Fate had decided him to be none less than Porcius, the sole survivor of Drearius´ orgy.

Down in the Arena Jinx stood laughing, her hands on her hips as she watched the bat take off. "That´s a good supply of fat for the journey he´s about to make!" She raised a fist. "A good voyage to you, Wing! I hope you make it to Everlight!"

She didn't doubt the fact the gigantic flyer hailed from the island. The short fur, the teeth large and sharp enough to devour a hornbeast… maybe he didn't prey on them, but even a scavenger needed teeth like that on the sacred island.

"Scourge!" She looked to the side. Seffec, who just ripped his trident from an Eradicator´s throat, gestured upwards. "Climb to the Emperor and kill him! Quickly!"

Jinx nodded at him and ran through the sand towards the balcony. Once there, she flung her ropes around one of the ridged pillars supporting it and steadily started climbing up. She was aware of the fact the Eradicators all turned to her now, but they had the entire horde and the Ruborians against them.

The Emperor had stepped back, out of her sight, but Marius was looking down at her and she looked back, straight into his dark eyes. "Hi, Marius," she panted. "No Sentinels with you this time, I see. Forbidden inside the Arena walls, isn't that a pity?"

As the Speaker used his voice it was in a calm tone, despite the rage in his eyes. That was so enormous she knew a rabid grass bear would be a more favourable opponent, but she was in the perfect mood for that. As she heard what he had to say, however, she stopped climbing.

"Bring in the yeti."

A familiar roar resounded through the Arena, drowning out the screaming of the still fleeing audience. Jinx closed her eyes for a moment. "No…"

"_Ankhwoooooo!_"

Five meters tall, with murder in his one eye and yellow foam around his mouth, the yeti thundered into the ring. The Eradicators scattered as quickly as their armour allowed as the beast from the Nordbergian mountains flung itself against the pillars with the force of an avalanche, with such power Jinx fell out of them and another was rammed away from underneath the balcony, to thud down in the sand.

The Purple Scourge scrambled to her feet as fast as she could, with a hammering head and burning eyes because of the flying sand. Within half a second she´d unsheathed her sword again. She rolled over as the yeti´s fist came down next to her and immediately stabbed his fingers. "You couldn´t kill me then, you can´t do it now! I´ll _prove_ Gnarl I can survive without the wolves!" In one way or another, that was more important than getting out of the Arena, more important than survival; she simply had to show Gnarl she could face the yeti by herself…

"There he is! There he is! Oh, I was so worried about you…"

"What? No, you weren´t! You just went off to paint your nails! I…"

"Sire! Sire!"

Jinx tore her sword from the enormous hand and looked up. Sayron was standing on the other side of the Nordbergian beast, and the new voices had sounded from his direction.

Voices of which she´d thought she´d never hear them again. Juno, Kelda, and Gnarl.

"I knew you were still alive, Sire." The uncharacteristic joy was clearly audible in the old advisor´s voice. "I see you can manage without my aid."

"It´s good to have you back, Gnarl," Jinx called out. "I was just thinking of you."

"So you´re still around as well. I should have known we wouldn´t be getting rid of you just yet." Jinx grinned at those words. "You don´t mean a thing of it, old man."

"Lord, that yeti seems to be a primate of sorts. Maybe his brain is alike to a human one? If you can convince Imperials to think like you, you will certainly succeed in doing so with this noble creature."

Sayron halted in the middle of a strike, after which he could barely dodge the yeti´s next blow. "You don´t mean…"

"I do, Sire. Blind slaughter sometimes isn´t the appropriate answer. This strength may be put to good use."

The Overlord exchanged glances with Jinx. The horde leader couldn´t help it; her eyes were gleaming with pride. "Told you so." She said it in the lowest possible voice. She didn´t dare say it to Sayron´s face just yet.

Seffec stabbed the yeti between his shoulder blades with three steel points, so the creature turned away from Sayron and Jinx. At the same moment Stabbit launched himself onto his head and started his efforts clawing out the enormous eye.

"Jinx." Sayron turned towards her with flaming eyes. "Cover me."

"With pleasure, Lord!" Jinx turned to the yeti with an unmovable grin and unsheathed sword and joined the Ruborian and the green. At the same time Sayron readied his magic.  
>The yeti milled around at the small figures attacking him, stabbing him with sharp, glistening pieces of metal in their hands or on sticks. On top of his head was another ball of unbearable pain, which he tried to flick away with one hand, but every time it just shot to his back and immediately returned. He roared, and blindly swatted around until he felt he´d hit something. Upon opening his one eye he saw two of the little figures being flung against the pillars and collapsing there.<p>

Then his sunken ears suddenly caught a crackling behind him. As he turned, it was already too late – the only thing he saw was an exploding blue light filling his entire world and future.

Jinx felt as if she was soaring after Ripped Wing, out of the Arena and on her way to Everlight. She weakly smiled up at the sky – that wasn´t such a bad idea at all. She missed the tropics terribly.

Something touched her shoulder and made her gaze return to the rows of seats, the Arena walls, and down to the sand. Blue eyes looked back at her, not all that bright anymore either, but a little bit more conscious than she was. Seffec had been smashed into the marble with a little less force.

"Look," he said, smiling as the blood came trickling from the corner of his mouth.

Jinx looked up. Only then did the crackling reach her ears.

Sayron stood up tall and proud beneath the Imperial balcony, his arm raised towards the lowered head of the yeti. The enormous arms of the creature hung down limply and the one eye was half-closed. The Overlord was overpowering the beast with all his might. A thick beam of blue lightning connected his hand to the creature´s skull.

"Top that, Solarius," Jinx mumbled, distractedly wiping away the blood dripping across her cheek from a head wound. "You can´t bring us down. You just plainly _can´t_."

The lightning died away in jolts. The yeti fully opened his eye and looked at Sayron, an expression of unmovable loyalty on his silent face. Sayron nodded briefly.

The beast turned away from him and towards the pillars. Jinx and Seffec hurriedly scrambled to their feet and stepped away from the balcony backwards. The horde closed itself around them and two Ruborian men caught Seffec as his left leg failed to carry him any further. The boy seemed to realize only now he shouldn´t be able to stand on it at all – the bone was protruding at a strange angle.

As the yeti went for the remaining pillars supporting the balcony, the final spectators fled the Arena. On the balcony Marius looked around him wildly, seemingly not able to grasp just how much the Games had gone out of hand. Then he turned back to the Emperor, who´d already backed away from the balcony itself. "Back to the Palace, my Emperor," the Speaker said hurriedly. He stepped through the passage back to the Imperial chambers together with his lord, and disappeared from sight.

In the meantime, the yeti wrecked the rest of the pillars. The Imperial balcony creaked and cracked, shards of marble broke off and fell down, and then, finally, the magnificent structure collapsed. The balcony came down as if in slow motion and whacked a crater in the sand. Debris flew everywhere and formed an improvised stairway to the passage where the Emperor had disappeared. The first Minions were already climbing the ruins, and Sayron was quick to follow them.

Jinx remained standing there as the horde streamed past her. She stared at the spot where the balcony had been, a faint smile around her lips and with her thoughts not all in this world. She only jolted awake as a familiar claw closed itself around her arm. The Arena sword fell into the sand as Kniff looked up at her.

"Said so."

Jinx´ smile widened. "I should have known it´s the truth when you say it, old friend."

Kniff looked up at the debris. Stripe was standing in the passageway, waving with his sword. "Hive was still there! Was in storage with rest of the blues! Are still alive! Still alive!" As he shouted out those words the first blue Minion stepped into sight, though he wasn´t blue at all, but white. Zap shielded his eyes from the harsh sunlight with the only hand he had left. Stripe and Spink helped the old horde leader down as the rest of his clan appeared behind him.

As the blues climbed down, Sayron stepped back into sight, something gleaming in his hands. As he raised it, the sunlight spattered off it. "They used this to make the Sentinel lenses! A shard of the Heart! Let´s see if it fits the shard we found in the Wasteland!"

"And the Emperor?" Jinx shouted up. "He's in there somewhere!"

"A blue flame," Sayron called back. "Marius has taken him somewhere safe. We have to hurry, I can hear the soldiers chanting from here. That, and I think there might be a legion of Sentinels approaching through these halls."

"At least they can´t create any new Sentinels," Jinx answered.

Sayron quickly let himself fall down the debris. "You´re right." He scanned the Arena. "We have what we came for. And we´re still alive. That makes up for the fact we have to leave this accursed city without another fight."

Jinx took a deep breath. "Can you get us out of here, Gnarl?"

"Of course, milady. You shouldn't have asked." A tremor ran through the soil. A moment later a Tower Gate dug through the sand, a sight that brought tears of relief and joy to Jinx´ eyes. Black Netherworld claws curved up to the Imperial sky. As if drawn in by a magnet she stepped forwards, one foot in the blue light. Then she stopped, one hand around a sharp spike. She turned to the Ruborians. Seffec looked back. "Will you follow us?"

The Ruborian with the blue eyes grinned. "Aiwa."

Jinx frowned briefly. Before she could ask, Seffec nodded with an even bigger grin. "Considering my answer, I think it might be useful for you to learn our language. Aiwa means a full-out ´yes´."

"I´m glad to hear that," Jinx answered with a smile, not entirely certain why she wanted the Ruborians to come with her so badly – the fact they were new allies didn´t explain everything she felt right now.

The blue light swallowed the Overlord and his followers, including the blue Hive. The Netherworld was complete. And as the Sentinels arrived in the Arena and closed the magical shield of the city above it, so the Gate trembled and folded in on itself, it was already too late – Sayron might have retreated, he was on his way to invincibility now. The day he´d return would mean serious trouble for Arcadiopolis.

And high above the western ocean, with a good tail wind and the sun on his wings, an Everlightian giant bat with a stomach full of nobleman soared towards the same goal as the one who freed him: back home.

**General: Blimey, wish I had've been there. That was an epic fight. And now all the Arena has to offer is gone (skip gleefully)**

**Jinx: Am I glad to be home. We got the Blue Hive, destroyed the Arena, enslaved the yeti, I made new friends, and we helped a creature escape. Not bad for a days work.**

**General: Indeed my dear, though I'm sure you'll be very high on Marius' list of people he doesn't like.**

**Jinx: I don't care, one of he hardest parts during the fight was listening to his voice. Does he ever shut up?**

**General: To be honest I don't think he does, probably talks in his sleep as well.**

**Jinx: Right, well I'm gonna go get some rest. Please review readers. **


	22. Calm Before the Storm

**Maraxus: Yes, I am back and bad as ever.**

**Gnarl: Who cares about you? The Blue Hive has been recovered, the Master and Jinx are back, and they ruined the Arena as well.**

**Maraxus: You had to kill the mood didn't you?**

**Gnarl: You don't even own this story, all you do is create these little segments. All credit for this story goes to that Sunjinjo female on Deviantart.**

**Maraxus: Don't diss the creator. But yeah I don't claim this story, enjoy.**

**Calm Before The Storm**  
><span> 

Home… 

It had been far too long. 

Even though Jinx had been to the Netherworld just before the catastrophic orgy, she felt like she hadn´t been home in months, and in a way she was right, for it was only now that she returned to the barracks. Her true home didn´t lie in the Tower at all. Her true home lay with the Minions. And the barracks had never been this alive. 

The blue clan had returned. The blue Hive was triumphantly lifted on webbed hands and deafening cheering, to be placed on the jutting rock at the waterfalls, where a spark immediately lit up in the large, flat cups. Jinx stretched her neck, but couldn´t see anything. Then, as a replacement, she cast out a rope to a basalt spike stabbing through the waterfall and flew over the Minions´ heads, turned in the air and had a good view on top of the cups.  
>Before her eyes, they filled with pink eggs. Within, she could see little wiggling figures with long tails. <p>

The blue Hive had been seeded. For the first time in thirteen years. 

The blue Minions let out cries of triumph and joy, and Jinx shouted with them in exhilaration. 

Next to the Hive, a pale figure raised one arm. Zap´s damaged ear webs stood out wide and high. "We´re back! We´re healed! _The Netherworld is complete again!_" 

And no speech of any Overlord, at the dawn of any battle, could have awakened this amount of cheering from Minion throats. 

From her lookout spot in the middle of the waterfall Jinx raised her ropes up high and cried out until her vocal cords were sore. Only as the storm of triumph had slightly calmed down, she saw a few figures at the back of the crowd of Minions without glowing eyes. 

She stared straight into the blue eyes of Seffec abd-Napata. He was looking around, clearly busy to understand the exact meaning of the blue Hive´s return for the Minions and the Netherworld. 

This granted him a bit of respect from Jinx´ behalf. 

The horde leader grinned and let herself fall along the waterfall and into the fast-flowing river below, to hoist herself out of the water next to a couple of her brown horde members. She growled cheerfully in reaction to their incense as she soaked them.

Things had changed. 

All Minions were glad to be back, but not many were as exhilarated as the head of the spider riders as he climbed up along the living vines at his Hive, towards the nests. White silk surrounded him as he came higher, and here and there were already the many red eyes leering at him. Ramul clawed himself into the horizontal vines and clambered to the nest of his beloved Letho. 

However, upon his arrival, there was more than just his spider waiting for him. The nest wasn´t just covered with white, but also with black silk… 

Little squeaks and growls drifted towards him from within the shelter, with Letho´s familiar voice above them. Then something jumped out of the nest. And another, and another.  
>Ramul raised his claw knives to defend himself, but noticed they´d been covered in the same black silk as the nest within two seconds. He couldn´t do anything against the little green bolts of lightning that flew towards him… <p>

Green? 

For a moment, he froze. Then he reached to the back of his head and plucked off one of his little attackers. 

Dangling from his hand was a tiny green Minion, with stumps of cheek spikes, unfrayed little ears and brightly gleaming eyes. The little one was naked apart from some of his own protective silk. Along the inside of the tail were two rows of silk glands. 

Letho stepped into sight, with even more subtle movements than usual. The enormous spider raised her velvet pedipalps and rubbed them over her jaws in greeting. The eight eyes were gleaming with pride. 

Ramul looked at her. Then back to the youngster in his hand, and the eight others now dividing themselves over his back and Letho´s abdomen. Then his eyes softened for the first time in Minion memory and his mouth curled into a sharp-fanged smile.

As Ramul was coming to terms with the knowledge he was probably the first Minion ever to pass on his genes, Zap, leader of the blue horde, stepped away from the Hive and straight down the rocks. He could have taken the river, but he didn´t dare to swim in the rapid waters. 

One Minion hadn´t been there to see the placing of the Hive. And it was a blue one. 

Zap stepped across the last hanging bridge. He could already see the huge stalagmite. The Minion he was looking for was standing at the well next to it, his hands on the edge and his head low beneath the hood. Even from a distance, Zap could see his entire robed body was trembling. 

"Murk." 

The trembling increased. 

"Murk… old friend." 

The hooded head was lowered deeper over the Well. As the Minion spoke his gurgling words echoed up as if they came from a great depth. "_It is Mortis, now._" 

Zap reached the other blue Minion and pressed his one, pale hand against the rough fabric of the robe, at the height of Mortis´ heart. The blue leader´s breath faltered. 

Mortis raised his pale eyes to his former leader. A faint smile stretched the grey skin around his mouth. "Yes, old friend. The resurrecter´s heart does not beat anymore." 

"…I feared it." 

"I have not feared anything in thirteen years." 

"How did it happen? You, Hylke and Gush stayed behind…" 

"As you dived into the river with the Hive and swam downstream to the city of the pillar-builders we felt it in our hearts, and in our heart of hearts, shade swimmer. Every day, we died a bit more. The blue spark was fading." 

Zap briefly closed his eyes. Mortis kept looking at him without blinking, his own eyes completely bereft of emotion. As Zap opened his eyes once again he clenched his one fist.

"Every day, a bit more… Hylke and Gush died entirely." 

"No, shade swimmer. All three of us died entirely." Mortis seemed to stare right through

Zap with his pale eyes. "But they did it slightly earlier than I. They asked me to take their lives." 

Zap´s eyes widened. 

"I took a brown one´s knife… Migs, was his name. I cut out their hearts, and their heart of hearts. I took the blue sparks. And then, three torturous days later, I myself died because of the absence of the Hive. Hylke´s spark kept my blood flowing, Gush´ spark kept my spirit within my body. My own spark spread out and became my talent…" Mortis snapped his fingers and there was the blue whirl, a collection of small bones floating within it. "My life, shade swimmer. I am dead. I guard the balance. I have no need of the Hive. I have no need of a horde leader, for I am outside of any horde." 

Zap nodded silently. 

"I heal them. I resurrect them. I save those who are fit to be saved." Mortis paused. "I make the difference… at the very last moment." 

"Forgive me." 

"I know no forgiveness." 

Zap, old and wise as he was, bowed his head, overpowered by shame. He tightly closed his eyes, but opened them again as he felt a hand on his good shoulder. He looked up into the pale eyes of his former horde member. 

Mortis seemed to be smiling faintly. "But I know no pain anymore either. No grief, no loss. And thanks to my new talent the horde knows no loss anymore either. So, in a way, I should thank you, shade swimmer. It was not easy, but the memory of the pain is gone now. I am new." 

Zap nodded. "Then I know what to call you from now on, Mortis." 

The resurrecter´s smile widened. "Let me ease your pain, horde leader. Give me your feet."  
>Zap widened his eyes and did what was asked of him. Mortis first firmly grabbed his left foot and closed his eyes. Bright blue sparks surrounded the limb. The remains of the webs on the outer toes grew towards each other until Zap´s foot was one web between the two remaining toes. The right foot underwent the same. <p>

"Now I have the right to call you shade swimmer."

"It was a good idea to save him a fate as a rug, Sire." 

Gnarl outstretched a bony hand to the gigantic beast behind the arcanium bars. The cage stood in the middle of the throne room, hastily polished as it was, the vast age of it all but invisible now. This cage had contained dragons and trolls in times long past. Now, it served just as well to contain the tamed yeti. Sayron was reluctant to let it roam his domain freely.  
>"We can use his strength." <p>

"Could this be the same one that aided me in my escape from Nordberg, thirteen years ago?" Sayron pondered. "He seems familiar." 

"If it has been the same yeti all the time, he´s come a long way, Sire. From Nordberg to the Netherworld, into elven hands where he also hunted Jinx, and from there, in one way or another, to the Empire… but whichever way he´s taken, he´s here now!" Gnarl chuckled. "Back to the Empire, of course, he will go. But slightly more effective this time. I can already see it, this marvellous beast charging for their city walls… There will be screaming and the crack of breaking bones, oh yes." 

Juno looked at the mountain of grey fur disapprovingly, but Kelda was grinning broadly. "It´s good to see a yeti again, even though the last one I saw made off under the ice with you, love. You´ve made quite the catch." 

"Quite the catch, indeed," Gnarl agreed. "This yeti, the blue clan, and then I´m not even mentioning those Ruborian friends your horde leader managed to bring with her. Not bad at all, Sire." 

Sayron took place upon the throne and tapped against the cushions. "I´m not too sure. They´re roaming around the entire Netherworld, they´ve even figured out the floating rock already…" 

"The Ruborians are strong, Sire, and they hate the Empire with a passion equalling yours. And their young leader, Seffec abd-Napata…" 

"He´s too young! He can never lead his people!" 

"He´s twenty years old, Sire, as old as you are." 

Sayron stared at his advisor for a moment. Gnarl looked back without flinching.  
>"You may forget this fact in your wisdom, but despite the imposing figure you inherited from your father, you are of the same worldly age as Seffec, and you´re probably of the same age as Jinx as well, Sire." <p>

Sayron clenched a mighty fist. "Leave me." 

"As you wish, Sire." Gnarl bowed and shuffled to the descending stairs, to take to other tasks in the lower levels. Kelda and Juno approached the Overlord, but his expression told them more than words. They, too, hurried out of the throne room. A moment later Sayron stood up and slowly walked over to the yeti cage, to look deep into the beast´s one yellow eye. 

"The tables are turning."

Wings… 

The glow from the heart of the world cast a flickering light up along the Tower, at times broken by the shadows of the floating rocks tumbling along in front of it. Sometimes the irregular walls were lit by an orange glow, sometimes they were cast in gloom. The same went for the girl crouching on a jutting ridge halfway up the vertical walls. Jinx stared down into the light, but her mind´s eye saw trees in silver moonlight. From above. 

The night she´d flown above the Everlightian jungle had been one of the most beautiful of her life. She couldn´t exactly think of anything better. 

Wings. Ripped, but healed. 

She saw the bat in front of her, flying across the ocean, back into the west. Everlight. He´d be there, soaring over the treetops in silver moonlight, without the aid of pixie dust. 

Wings. 

The horde leader didn´t exactly know why, but the image of the beast ascending over the Arena had scorched itself into her retinas. She had to see him again, she was very sure of that now. It could never be, it wasn´t even likely the bat would actually make it to Everlight, but here and now she had a strong feeling she´d see him again one day. 

She shook her head as the image of the tumbling rocks far below her finally got through to her again. She frowned. She didn´t want to be here right now. 

A heartbeat later she flashed down along the Tower, in the firm grip of gravity. Not long afterwards, her ropes took over.

"Sef." 

"Hmm?" 

"Sef, did you see that?" 

Seffec looked up into his friend´s face. Masud´s dark eyes were full of excitement. "What should I have seen?" 

"The Scourge! She plummeted down, right there, straight down like a rock!" 

Seffec immediately looked down over the edge of the balcony he and Masud had been walking across, still scouting around the domain. The Ruborians wanted to know everything about their new home. All of them already missed the sun, but they didn´t have permission to use the portal yet. Some doubted the actions of their young leader, and Seffec had his own doubts about the rightness of his decision to join the dark side – how could he know Sayron wouldn´t use them as practice material for his other warriors? Or as cannon fodder in the front lines? Even though the blue Minions had healed his leg and quite an amount of other injuries amongst his people, it would take time for the Ruborians to trust the Overlord… if he was worthy of that trust. 

He knew it hadn´t been Sayron who´d made him step into the portal to this Netherworld. 

It had been the Purple Scourge, and she´d barely needed words to do so. That had also been the reason for Seffec abd-Napata to be so hasty in looking down. He was just in time to see Jinx cast out her ropes and swing down along the Tower with broad swipes, all the way to the jutting platform where the floating rock docked, at throne room level. He looked down upon her red-wrapped head as she stepped inside. She didn´t look up. 

Seffec only looked up as Masud punched his arm. "_What?_" 

The young Ruborian just grinned.

The smells! The light! The swelling sound of the upper world – and what a place in the upper world! 

Salt, sand, coconut milk. The shimmering of sunlight on water, like countless silver coins in a pirate´s treasure. The scorching heat of a tropical sun. The rushing of the Everlightian sea! 

Jinx spread her arms and spun around laughing, barefoot in the golden sands nearby Ignavopolis, and continued until she was dizzy enough to fall over. She fell down into the sand on her behind and immediately let herself fall over entirely so she could stare up at the palm leaves above her. Only then did the sound of Minion voices register. 

She´d expected that sound, but not with a gurgling undertone. 

She pushed herself up from the sand. Her eyes had to get used to the light, but after a few seconds she could make out little blue figures in the tropically blue ocean, just a little way from shore. She started grinning as she walked towards the water line. 

The blue Minions were swimming again. And how.

…Soaker couldn´t believe his luck. 

After all those years of putrid water, copper jars and the burning sun with the grainy Arena sand beneath his webs he was swimming in the blessed ocean. The salt water tasted great, his feet kicked up the sand of the steeply descending bottom in high clouds and all around him were his overjoyed clan members, tumbling and signalling with their webbed fingers in exhilaration. 

Blue Minions had no gills and had to ascend to the surface for air, but not that often. They could hold their breath for minutes. Soaker could probably do it for the longest amount of time amongst his clan. He was large, had ear webs that continued all the way to his chin and a long scar across his chest – he was the one that had been freed by Sayron first before the Overlord had entered the Arena. Often, he´d been one of the last blues to resurrect the rest of his clan in the days they´d spent in the Empire´s clutches. And he was the one kicking his webbed feet with the greatest force of all, shooting across the sea floor, towards the docks of Ignavopolis. As he swam underneath the boards with a couple of other swift-swimming blues, in the liquid light shining between the cracks, he noticed a shadow above the surface.

He kicked himself away from the sea floor in a billowing cloud of sand and shot up. His round head broke through the surface, causing almost no ripples at all, and a second eyelid blinked open to grant him a sharper focus above water. 

At the edge of the docks stood a girl with messy black hair, large scars across half of her face and strong vines slung over her shoulder. Even Soaker, who´d only been in the Netherworld for two days, knew Jinx and everything she represented. He nodded with a smile. "Brown leader." 

Jinx nodded back and gave a small salute. "Soaker, isn´t it?" 

"Yes, leader." 

Jinx had noticed the blues kept to respectful names and protocol. She now realized Mortis had gone slightly further with this; the resurrecter never called someone by their real names, but made titles up himself. In the end, that originated with the respect of the regular blues. 

In a whim, she bowed her head. "Thank you for saving my life. Without your clan, I wouldn´t be here." 

"You´ve already repaid that debt a hundredfold, leader." 

Jinx smiled broadly. She looked from the dock, as more and more round blue faces joined Soaker´s, there just off Everlight´s shores. Some humans joined her in their turn. The former Imperials, now Sayron´s loyal subjects, had lost a great deal of weight since she´d been here last. She also saw a few of the brown Minions now in charge of the city. 

She looked back to the blues. Then she realized why she´d really come here. She looked over her shoulder to the ever-present jungle. Would Ripped Wing have made it already?

Probably not… 

"I have to go back," she spoke to Soaker. He nodded and dived back below the waves.  
>Jinx turned and walked back to the Tower Gate.<p>

The muted sound of chisels to stone resounded through the throne room as Sayron sat down upon the throne the next day. A few Minions above his head made sure no chippings fell to their Overlord – others were busy crafting the rocks above the throne into a whole new figure. The rough shape of two gigantic wings already spanned the walls on both sides. 

Gnarl crept closer towards the throne. "My Lord." 

"Gnarl," the Overlord nodded. "I´d like to hear your opinion concerning… the attacking of Nordberg." 

"So you want to continue with that plan?" 

Sayron nodded once. "I don´t plan to leave the city in elven hands. I want it back before I crush Arcadiopolis." 

"This would be the appropriate moment. Fay is certainly expecting you to reside in the Netherworld until you´re strong enough to attack the Empire again, and with full force this time." The advisor tapped against his chin. "Either way, it´s not the right time for that, something I wanted to speak with you about as well. You probably remember the Wasteland?" 

Sayron nodded. "Yes. And I also heard rumours about the blue Minions. Would they be able to clear away the ooze so I can explore the area further?" 

"Probably. I wanted to advise you to make sure you do so before you turn to the Empire again." 

"But I also want to propose I attack Nordberg first, whatever I do next," Sayron spoke sternly. 

"Most certainly, Lord," the advisor bowed. "I can´t deny I do look forward to that as well. Do you wish to use all means? You´ll have to drive out the elves and win back the humans, or do you want to use the ´no survivors´ strategy?" 

"I want to see them writhing in the dust," the Overlord spoke calmly. "And I do wish to use all means. Fear is the best tactic in this case." 

Gnarl grinned. "My idea exactly. Will you unleash the yeti?" 

"The yeti and the Ruborians. And all four of the clans." 

The advisor folded his hands. "A wise plan, my Lord. But may I remind you of the fact that the young Seffec is not yet fully loyal to you?" 

Sayron remained silent for a moment. "Considering the loyalty of his people I don´t think it´s a good idea to break him." 

Gnarl nodded silently. His eyes were gleaming. 

"…Let Jinx come to the throne room. She brought them here, I hope for her own sake she can teach them where their loyalty lies." 

"And us," the advisor nodded. "I´ll tell her, Sire." He shuffled out of the hall. "Before too long we´ll be able to return to the north above us…" 

Sayron stood up with flaming eyes. A cold smile tugged at his hidden mouth. 

"…and it´ll burn like the hell beneath us."

Not five minutes later a muted thud resounded above the Overlord´s head. He turned and looked up. On the balcony above the throne was Jinx, still busy gathering her ropes. 

"You´re the one I needed." 

"You had me brought in, Lord," the horde leader nodded. "I just returned from Everlight. Everything´s going according to plan in Ignavopolis." 

Sayron walked to the throne, as Jinx let herself fall down and landed on one knee as the Overlord took place. She rose. "What´s the reason of this… audience?" 

Sayron tapped the basalt of his seat with an armoured hand. "I wanted to ask you what you think of the Ruborians." 

Jinx blinked her eyes. "They hate the Empire and want to see Solarius dead just as much as we do. They handle the Netherworld surprisingly well. I think they´re valuable allies." 

"But are they loyal to me? Are they doing it for the Dark Domain? It´s not a matter of a common enemy, Jinx." His voice grew biting. "I don´t want them to turn against me when we topple the Emperor. I want to be able to trust them." 

Jinx lowered her eyes and thought about it. "They need to know they fight not simply _against_ the Empire, but _for_ you." She looked up. "Then let them. How far are you planning the Nordberg siege?" 

"You know better than anyone there are shifts posting at the Hives to get all the newborns into this world in one piece, as the hordes have never grown this fast," the Overlord spoke. "In fact, I´m prepared already. But I want to use that magnificent beast," he gestured towards the yeti, his enormous hands still clutching the bars of his cage, "and I also want to use non-magical troops against the elves. But your Ruborian friends…" 

"…You weren´t certain of their loyalty." Jinx nodded. "If you want my advice, I say you should give them the black banner and send them to Nordberg. Let them fight Fay´s army. Then you´re sure they´re doing it for you, and not for simple revenge. Let them kill an elf and you´re certain of the dark in Seffec´s heart." She awaited Sayron´s reaction tensely. 

The Overlord looked at her with an unreadable stare. Then he nodded and his eyes lit up. "Tomorrow, at nightfall, we march to Nordberg." 

Jinx bowed slightly. "I´m looking forward to it, Sire." She grinned and cast a rope upwards. A heartbeat later she was gone. 

A dry cough sounded in the shadows. "A wise decision, Lord." 

Sayron didn´t turn. "Whose?" he asked calmly. "Mine to take it, or hers to propose it?" 

No answer. The only sound was a stiff shuffling as Gnarl walked to the throne. The advisor wasn´t exactly prepared for the sudden presence of an iron hand around his throat, or the fact he came to hang a foot above the ground. Sayron´s eyes were ablaze. "She corrects the mistakes you make! I´d better rely on her than you! You, the Minion Master!" 

Gnarl clutched his Master´s fist. His yellow eyes were widened and actually filled with fear. "Sire," he creaked painfully. "I can´t and won´t stop you from harming me, but realize what you´d lose." 

Sayron´s eyes cooled. A heartbeat later he opened his fist and the advisor thudded down to the black marble, a pile of bones in a grey cloak. Gnarl climbed to his feet and coughed, less dry this time. He folded his hands and lowered his ears. "I´ll go and talk to Kivner of Nordhaven, Sire. If he´d lead the assault, it´d most certainly lower the morale of the people." 

"You´d better," the Overlord growled. "I wish you the best of luck, because I don´t think he´s forgotten it was you who tortured him so exquisitely."

Greasy torchlight, seemingly bereft of all brightness, gleamed dully on steel – the old, bludged and in many cases rusty steel of the weapons and armour below the fighting rings of the Minions, low in the Tower. It seemed to grow slightly brighter as it reflected off a jagged sword; a sword being raised by dark hands. 

"_Barid husam_," it resounded. The ears of nearby Minions moved slightly to catch the soft voice. "Unbelievable I´m seeing this again…" 

"The swords of our ancestors…" 

"And not just the swords, Masud!" The light of a passing Minion carrying a torch briefly lit up the face of an exhilarated Seffec abd-Napata and glistened in his blue eyes. "Look here… old _ebo_horns…" 

Masud reached inside a weathered wooden crate. "A golden helmet of the Saipern-legion." His voice was full of respect. "I wonder if they´re still busy in the south." 

"Let´s focus ourselves on the events in the north right now, and I don´t mean the north of Ruboria." Seffec weighed the old sword in his hand. "I remember my father carried a sword much like this one before he was forced into the Imperial army." His mouth tightened. "They didn´t just give him a straight coward-sword, but also a place in the front lines…" 

Masud outstretched a hand and placed it upon the curved blade. "So cold." 

"Just as cold as the Nordbergian snow where my father died. I name this sword after that cold – Barid." Seffec nodded. "I hear Nordberg will be our first battle, let´s say it´ll be a nice start of our career…" He looked at his friend, who just picked up a long bow. "You´re sticking to the long distance?" 

Masud nodded, grinning as he fastened a magnificently crafted elven quiver. "I prefer a nice view over the battlefield." 

"My idea," it sounded from above the two Ruborian boys. They looked up, into the glowing yellow eyes of a brown Minion. He was sitting above them in the scaffolding, busy attaching razor-sharp metal tips to arrows of varying plumage. In the dark, they could just make out his grin. "Name´s Minc." 

"Masud," the boy nodded. "Pleased to meet you, fellow archer." 

"Probably end up together at the back," the Minion chuckled. "Or on Nordberg´s walls." 

"Not bad at all." 

Minc nodded to the boys´ clothing – still barely more than rags. "Pick yourselves some armour. Furs are at back, would be smart to take some. Ruboria´s warm, yes?" He grinned again. "Been there once, days after spawning. Sand´s still scorched ´tween my claws. As is bomber beetle explosion in my eyes." 

Seffec laughed. "Tell me about bomber beetles. So you´ve seen Ruboria, Minion?" 

"Sef," Masud hissed. "Call him by his name, he´s one of us." 

"…I mean, Minc?" Seffec quickly corrected himself. He exchanged glances with his friend; Masud was right. 

Minc had narrowed his eyes, but his expression quickly changed. He nodded. "One of last voyages with Master Vessperion." 

"Then you probably know more of our homeland than we do. And we´re used to cold… I think Nordberg is about as warm as an Imperial winter now." 

"Well prepared," Minc winked slyly. "Have no doubt you´ll keep the black banner high." 

Seffec stuck the sword through his belt. "Hopefully long enough to polish this old sword with blood."

Greasy torchlight, but now even less of it, also gleamed on steel in a level lower still. This steel, however, hadn´t been forged to form the blades of weapons, but chains and bars. And behind those bars, in the company of three skeletons wearing the bloodied remains of togas, was a man with a rough red beard and long, matted red hair. His clothing, or what was left of it, was all straw and filth and his brown eyes were glassy. 

That changed as footsteps resounded on the stairs leading into the dungeons from the upper levels. First the foot claws came into sight, and as soon as Kivner could make out the colour of his visitor´s skin, he shot to the back of the cell between the skeletons. A few bones rattled and a skull that had come loose earlier rolled into the corner. Somewhere, startled rats squeaked. 

Gnarl stepped from the stairs and shuffled towards the bars. Kivner hid his face. "No more, no more…" 

"Kivner of Nordhaven, be ashamed of yourself," the raspy old voice sounded with a cruel amusement. "I´d expected more of a spine from someone like you. You should like it to be tortured by the servants of your beloved Overlord." 

"…No more…" 

"What do you think of the Overlord now, Kivner?" 

"…No more…" 

Gnarl impatiently tapped his foot. He knew now it hadn´t been very smart to try and force a truth out of Kivner that wasn´t there – he really had wanted to hand Nordberg out to Sayron. He wanted his people to be reduced to slaves – or corpses. Or at least, that´s what he had wanted before. Right now, Kivner of Nordhaven was an empty shell. Gnarl had tortured him a bit too often. 

The advisor struck the bars with all the force his bony body could muster. "Kivner!" 

The trembling of the human pile of misery in the corner of the cell ceased for a moment.

Then it started again with a new fierceness. 

"Listen to me." 

A dull eye briefly looked at him from within a tangle of red hair. Then Kivner tucked his head between his shoulders again. 

"I´m not going to torture you today. But only when you answer me!" 

An irregular moan rose from the corner. Gnarl clenched his jaws and felt his rickety teeth protesting. "What would you do if you knew Sayron was about to have you thrown into the abyss today?" 

The reaction couldn´t have been more abrupt. Not a heartbeat later Kivner was inches from his face, knelt down to Gnarl´s eye height and with his hands clenched around the bars so tightly his knuckles were white. "No! He can´t do that! I´ll help him!" 

"Because you´re afraid he´ll throw you into the abyss?" 

"No! Because I´m afraid someone is going to throw _him_ into the abyss!" 

Gnarl fought the urge to shake his head in disbelief. In all his years as an advisor – more than he cared to remember – he´d never met someone like Kivner. "I´ve tortured you for weeks, Kivner. In his command." 

Kivner´s eyes brightened slightly. "No. He´s forgotten about me. You came here out of boredom and curiosity." 

Gnarl almost backed away. Almost. Kivner looked through him as if he was made of glass.

"Very well, let´s assume for now you´re right…" 

The Nordbergian looked at him, expectant as a child. 

"…and he´s no longer forgotten about you but has sent me down to let you out of your cell…" 

The man shuffled through the straw on his knees to press himself against the bars even tighter. 

"…and throw you into the abyss because he´s tired of wasting bread and water on you, even though the Minions have turned it down, what would you say to him?" 

Kivner kept looking at him, but he clearly didn´t see anything anymore. A drawn-out moan was wrenched from his throat. 

Right. So the man clearly could live with the idea he was allowed out of the cell, but not with the idea of dying. Gnarl had seen people who´d been tortured far less and had happily chosen for death. 

"And what if you´d be allowed to fight for him?" 

Immediately the brown eyes focused again. "Then I´d say he has my weapon, heart and soul." 

Again, Gnarl had to restrain himself not to step back. Kivner had been consistent again so fast it wasn´t human any longer. "Would you die for him?" 

"I don´t fear death." 

"Then what do you fear, Kivner?" 

"A world where the Empire has destroyed all magic and replaced it with machines and their own order." The ginger man shivered and his eyes seemed to focus on something beyond Gnarl. The advisor felt that, even if he turned now, he wouldn´t be able to see what Kivner saw. He decided to take the risk of addressing the Nordbergian again. "The elves are magical too. What you are about to fight is light magic, Kivner." 

"Light magic is in the way of true magic. How could the elves ever equal Lord Sayron? They simply took use of caves and trees, while the Dark Lord rules the heart of the world itself." 

_Aha…_

Suddenly Gnarl knew he was on to something. 

Kivner knew of the Sanctuaries – or at least he knew of the one below Nordberg. Maybe he´d become trapped there once as a child? Mesmerized by fairies or gnomes, perhaps? Allowed to taste magic for a brief time – and then become repulsed by it until he stumbled upon that other kind of magic… dark magic? 

The longer Gnarl thought of it, the more probable it seemed. He locked eyes with the ginger man again. "Very well then, Kivner. I´ll be honest with you. Tomorrow night, the Master is going to battle with Nordberg by use of all means. He wants to drive out the elves, but he´s also willing to kill the people. He wants the city back, and he doesn´t care how much of it will be left to rule. However, he´d be pleased if you´d be there to convince as many people as you can to come over to the dark side. He´s busy constructing a human army and the Nordbergians would be a nice addition." 

Kivner´s eyes were radiant.

On a rickety hanging bridge, a single figure was strolling away from solid basalt and towards the barracks above the yawning abyss. The barrack he was moving towards was swaying slightly, indicating someone was home. A tiny green figure scrambled away over the roof and lowered itself on a thread of black silk as he approached. 

He pushed the skins away from the entrance and revealed the inside. There, a few hooks had been attached to the walls and the floor was covered by a rough blanket. 

On a few of the hooks hung a red cloth, a leather breastplate and two vines. On the ground sat a girl with loose black hair, her legs crossed and busy sharpening an Imperial sword. Jinx looked up and smiled faintly. "Hi, Kniff." 

The brown Minion looked up with a crooked grin. "Wacky you´re still living here." 

Jinx raised an eyebrow. "How come?" 

"Are horde leader, cousin of the Master, brought the Ruborians here…" 

"And because of that I shouldn´t live here? Rubbish." Jinx stood up, just able to fit underneath the low ceiling of the barrack. "Unless you want me gone I´m not going anywhere. I´m part of the brown horde, so I sleep in your barracks. I thought that way when I first got here, and it´s still the same now." She leant against the wall. 

Kniff raised his ears. His eyes gleamed and he was smiling broadly. 

"Though things have changed, yes." 

The bat-like ears moved slightly. "Ruborians?" 

"It´s strange to have people around me again. Humans don´t belong here. I should be glad they´re here, and I really do appreciate them, but…" Jinx looked down and smiled warmly. "Ever since my death in Mortis´ nets I´ve belonged with you. Sometimes I wonder if he brought me back to life with brown life force. I feel like I´m more Minion than human." 

Kniff remained silent, but she could see he was delighted with those words. She gave one more stroke over her new sword. "Tomorrow we´re going back to Nordberg. Are you ready?" 

"You bet." 

"Good." She put the sword away. "We´ll see what the Ruborians can do, but I doubt they can top us."

**General: All hands, prepare for combat. Archers check your bows and arrows. Ruborians report to me for a full briefing. Commander Jinx I have a message for you.**

**Jinx arrives in the War Room**

**Jinx: What? I'm not a Commander.**

**General: Well you're sure not a Private either. Your mother has badgered me about passing on how brilliant you were at taking the Imperial Arena apart. So that's the message.**

**Jinx: Thanks, I guess. You ready for this fight?**

**General: Since those treehuggers took Nordberg I've been waiting for a full assault to reclaim it. Okay, all you readers please review this, if not for me then for Sunjinjo who wrote this. She deserves some gratitude. See you next time. Now where is Kniff with those explosives? **


	23. A New Order

**General: It is great to be back!**

**Jinx: Where have you been? My creator has plenty of chapters that need published.**

**General: I've been busy Commander Jinx. But don't worry, you can tell Sunjinjo that I will get her story published on fanfiction as she has done so on deviantart.**

**Jinx: Well you better. Speaking of which, how has this story been received on this site?**

**General: Frankly the number of views, subscriptions and favourites are tremendous, sadly most people don't review.**

**Jinx: So they read and don't review, come on people it's not that much to ask for.**

**General: You tell em. Anyway I do not this story it belongs to Sunjinjo as does the OCs. Enjoy**

**A new Order**  
><span> 

It was colder than she remembered. 

By now, autumn had fallen in Nordberg and the few brave green leaves the trees had brought forth coloured red, as red as the setting sun. 

That happened to be Jinx´ favorite colour. 

The horde leader stuffed the bottom of her trousers into her sturdy boots for some extra warmth. She was glad she´d taken some of her old seal fur, too. Now, she looked out over Nordberg´s city walls, and for a moment she seemed to be that inexperienced girl again, just woken up inside a wolf burrow and accompanied by a banished brown Minion.  
>Next to her, Kniff was grinning so wide the top of his head almost slid off. <p>

The town was strangely beautiful in the last light of day. 

_It'll soon be red once more._ Jinx smiled, her arms folded. The Imperial sword hung from her belt and around her shoulders her ropes had been curled up tightly. Around her, the horde stirred nervously, almost unable to wait until Sayron gave the signal to storm off the hill and take the city gates. 

The Overlord stood higher up the slope. The red light reflected off his armour and his sword as he looked out over his troops. 

The brown horde, however large it was with the enforcements of Meph and his lower level arena legion, was only a small part of the gathered warriors. The three other clans had also brought their members, though Zap was missing – he'd sent Soaker to be his replacement. The strong, scarred Minion would be as good a leader as the old, fragile but wise blue.  
>And then, of course, there were the Ruborians. Seffec had taken a number of his strongest, most trusted people, the ones standing closest to him being Masud with his long bow and a small, slender man with wooden beads in his black hair that rattled as he moved. Jinx had caught his name was Omari. <p>

Close to Sayron was another man with a paler skin and red hair. Kivner had strapped a large crossbow to his back, but he wasn't bending beneath its weight, no matter how bony and miserable he was. Immediately after he'd been taken from the dungeons and faced Sayron, he had been standing upright and had looked more like he'd used to before his predicament. Jinx was pleased to see him, in fact – he might be crazy, he'd been of use to them earlier and if all went well tonight, he might make sure more people joined their cause. 

"In this city, we've celebrated a victory against the Empire that won't be forgotten very soon," Sayron's voice rang out. "In fact it was my first victory. In that battle, I met Jinx and I won back the town I'd grown up in. Let's let the elves know Nordberg is still ours… and teach them what happens to those that hinder the Netherworld in her march to power." 

He'd spoken calmly and there was no hurricane of cheering, but the effect of his words was powerful. Jinx grinned and tightened her grip on the sword's hilt. 

"As the sun sets…" 

Jinx looked to the west. Beyond the blackened remains of Nordhaven, the sun touched the icy sea. 

"...and Nordberg is cast into shadow..." 

Kniff's ears slowly rose and the glow of his eyes grew stronger as the light diminished. 

"...we shall light Fay's army in their foolishness..." 

An excited buzz of raspy voices rose from the hordes. The Ruborians shifted nervously. Seffec plucked at the black cloak that'd been given to him before they'd left, bearing the Overlord's symbol. 

"...and we shall do so with the flames of our war!" 

"_For Sayron!_" screamed Jinx, a cry that was soon taken over by others until the hilltop was alive with cries of war. 

"Sayron! Sayron! Sayron!" 

The Overlord seemed to grow beneath the massive chanting. His eyes were aflame. He raised his weapon up high, and at the same moment came the blow of an elven horn inside Nordberg's walls. They'd been heard. But how couldn't they be, with this army at the gates? 

Jinx' eyes darted westward again. 

Very slowly, as if the last light was still resisting, the last shard of sun sank underneath the horizon. The red light slid off the hilltop and suddenly the world was darker... 

Sayron lowered his weapon in the sudden silence. 

"To battle." 

A flood of Minions stormed downhill.

Seffec was aware he ought to be leading both his own people and part of the horde, though he dared only to steer the Minions lightly out of fear of what Jinx might do to him should he threaten her position in whatever way. However, he noticed he was simply _running_, unable to stop due to a combination of battle frenzy and the simple fact there was so much aggression rampaging after him. 

Surprisingly fast, he reached the foot of the hill. As the land flattened, Jinx' clear voice rang out thought the cold night air, jerking him to his senses again. 

"Reds, after me! The rest focuses on the gates, but stay out of shooting range! Seffec, you want to stand back." The horde leader grinned as she took her ropes off her back, then she flashed up and climbed the city wall on the right side of the gigantic, mended wooden gates. The first elves and Nordbergians were already shooting at her, but she was swinging from side to side so swiftly not a single arrow hit its target. 

Seffec stepped back, as his eyes followed the tiny flaming figures of the red climbers, but he only really reacted as the roaring started. He spun round and his eyes flew up to the hilltop.  
>There was Sayron, ominous as ever. But the real sight stormed and tumbled and thundered downhill in large clouds of dirt and early snow. <p>

They didn't need a battering ram to thrust open these gates. They had the yeti. 

The mountain of fur flew over the front lines with a single gigantic leap and threw itself into the wooden gates. A fist the size of a dolmen stone rammed a dent in them almost immediately, and from within Nordberg came the sound of screaming and the ring of the clock tower bell. Seffec smiled. _Smooth._

On the inside of the doors resounded a metallic clink as some nails were beaten out from the outside. The yeti roared again. A next blow nearly unhinged the doors, and the single yellow eye glistened with beastly pleasure. 

"Ankhwoo!"

On the city wall Jinx balanced herself back to an upright position, quickly in the growing company of reds. That was a good thing, because the wall was teeming with both elven and human archers. The elves were considerably better at it than the Nordbergians, and so Jinx left them for the reds. The Nordbergian furs didn't burn as well as their light, leafy clothes anyway. 

The horde leader unsheathed her sword, snared a large man's throat and pulled him to her so she could get the blade under his chin. "We won't be scared off!" she proclaimed loudly. "It will rain fire and death until Nordberg is back under the rule of Lord Sayron, or until it's ceased to exist! What say you?" 

Jinx grinned as she got the familiar reaction. Some cast aside their weapons and ran down the wall stairs to the city itself, others raised their equipment and stormed for her. Seeing that, she slit her victim's throat without blinking and let him slide down behind the breastwork as his last breath gurgled in his bloody windpipe. That seemed to slow the Nordbergians somewhat, and their attention shifted to the burning elves now running across the wall. Without taking her gaze off the people, Jinx let her other rope shoot out and forced one of Fay's men to his knees with the arcanium spikes. "They could handle fifty Minions. But for how long could they remain with fifty? They're with five hundred now, good people, and still gathering. Five hundred will become five thousand. It knows no end. You will die here, or you will join us." 

Somewhere at the bottom of the stairs, a black-haired man suddenly unsheathed a jagged knife and stabbed an elf in the back. "We fight for you!" 

Jinx blinked. "Ah! There are still surviving followers of Kivner! I've got good news for you, friend." She looked back, then down to the gates – then jumped off of the breastwork to roll away just in time as part of the wall collapsed. 

With a great splintering of ancient wood, the gigantic yeti broke through the gates and swung into the streets. Jinx grinned darkly as the screaming kicked into high gear.

Minions streamed in through the remains of the gates, like a swarm of multi-coloured insects. Amidst them ran humans – Seffec's Ruborians. Kniff looked up in disapproval as he was nearly trampled by a slender man with wooden beads in his hair. However, his eyes widened as the Ruborian suddenly forced a Nordbergian to his knees without actually touching him. A mage? This was interesting... 

And now someone else was stepping out ahead of the horde. Kniff knew this one. Oh yes. Ginger hair, black leather, a large crossbow. With a loud whirr, he fired in the air once. The effect was greater than a scream for attention. They had enough attention as it was, and now the short but fierce bloodshed ceased and the warriors assembled around Kivner, he'd become the centre of everyone's world. 

At least, until a giant shadow emerged behind him, flowing into sight from within the smoke rising from the fires already starting in the Nordbergian houses. 

"People of Nordberg," Kivner spoke soothingly. "I offer you an agreement in the name of Lord Sayron..." 

A woman with unmistakable terror in her eyes spat on the ground before his feet. "Do you know where you can stick that agreement, demon?" 

A figure stepped out of the horde. "I do know where I'm going to stick my sword." And a blade, already gleaming with blood as it slid into her stomach, but even darker as it emerged from her back, cut off her next words. A darkly gleaming pool spread out in the bloodied moonlight. 

Seffec turned and calmly walked back to the Overlord. Sayron nodded at him very lightly, and there was visible contentment in the flaming eyes. 

Kivner spoke on, but Kniff had stopped listening. In his thoughts he went over the plans that had been made. As the Master tried to convince these people in the square, there was fighting in other streets to make sure the elfies didn't mess things up... and Jinxie and the reds were searching the city for something that could end all fighting if that might be necessary. Just like the Master had ordered.

With a clatter that hurt her ears from up this close the Purple Scourge crossed blades with an elf, standing atop one of Nordberg's rooftops. Fay's warrior – with braided, light brown hair and barely armoured – whacked her weapon aside, but she ducked before he could strike her. "Just give up," she chuckled. "Fay will fall. Your cities will burn. But if you leave now, Nordberg won't – then we'll just dominate it." She rolled aside and stabbed a second long-ear in the back, relieving the red who'd been fighting him. Left and right reds were jumping from roof to roof, and green spider riders fought to grant them safe passage. _Find that storage,_ Sayron had said. And she would. The pain of the scathing wounds and half-healed strikes she'd acquired only made her more eager to push on with that plan. She hoped the people of Nordberg needed their final shove before they'd surrender... 

Down in the streets the yeti milled about. He could flatten sheds and barns with a single blow, break through doors and pull away entire roofs. And she knew Sayron would lead a large portion of the people to the great square in the centre of town, from where they'd have a good view of her spectacle, might it come that far. His knowledge of the city was very useful now. 

"Maybe we fall today," her opponent panted, "but in the end Fay will defeat you. Light will always conquer!" 

Jinx pressed her weapon against his and brought her face very close, so she could stare him into his wide green eyes. "You may think so," she spoke softly. "That rule applied in this world – until Lord Sayron set foot in it." And then she yanked her sword away and thrust it into his stomach. Bleeding and gurgling, he rolled off the roof. Rasping laughter rose from the street below as the browns received him and finished the job. 

The roof was free. Of course, new elves were approaching fast, but for now... 

Jinx grinned. Then she turned and ran after the reds and greens that'd been placed under her command, to the roof's edge, and jumped. Her ropes ensured a safe flight to the next, and the one after that...

Lord Sayron placed a hand upon Kivner´s shoulder. The ginger man immediately stopped talking, though his honeylike voice had had a comforting effect on the people even despite the dead woman still causing a puddle of blood to seep away between the cobblestones, and of course, the screaming further into town. He looked up. "My Lord now wishes to speak to you." 

"And that´s an honour, take that from me," Seffec added. The Ruborian leader was standing at the Overlord´s left hand and now exchanged glances, not sure whether he´d been allowed to speak at all. Sayron looked back briefly, but didn´t say anything. However, an invisible smile plucked at his mouth as he looked out over the Nordbergians. 

"Good people of Nordberg... things aren´t looking good for you. But you´ve brought it down upon yourselves." Sayron gestured over their heads. "An alliance with Fay? Come now. First the Empire. Now light magic. You should know that only one choice could be the right one. And what is that choice, I ask you now...?" 

A man at the front of the crowd fell to his knees and touched the ground with his forehead. As he looked up, his face was red with the blood of the dead woman. "Lord Sayron," he answered in a whisper. 

"No!" another screamed. "Don´t give up your freedom!" A man wielding a small axe jumped out and flung his weapon at the horde. A green Minion, not fast enough in responding, fell over gurgling, the weapon embedded deeply in his chest. A blue Minion next to him immediately started dragging him away, but more weapons were being picked up. 

Sayron, safe in the middle of his horde, frowned with flaming eyes. Were they that stupid, or did they really rather die than follow him...? 

Maybe they did need that extra push. 

"The elves are dying in the streets," Kivner exclaimed next to him, visibly cool amidst the upcoming chaos. "Take it from me, your only hope now is to serve the mighty Overlord. You´ll be richly rewarded once he´s Emperor," he added. And indeed, the people hadn´t failed to notice the well-oiled crossbow strapped to his back, and the gleaming, black leather clothing he wore. Sayron felt it was easy to be generous towards someone with such a wonderfully messed-up mind as Kivner. 

"There´s doubt, Sire," Gnarl creaked in Sayron´s ear. "Too much. I think this would be the time to strike." He chuckled. "Of course, it´s a pity about... what will it be... a quarter of the city? But you´ll receive two things in return: a magnificent fireball and Nordberg´s loyalty." 

Sayron nodded, barely noticeable for the people in front of him. "Pass it on." In the meantime, he drew his sword. He could just hear it calling for the blood of Nordberg, but he had to let someone else handle this. 

More specifically, the Minion Mistress. 

"With pleasure, my Lord."

Jinx flung herself up along a steep wall full of protruding bricks and crumbling cement. Perfect. She loved this. A few doubtful snowflakes whirled past her as she threw herself feet-first into the top of Nordberg´s bell tower. 

She was greeted by the fearful eyes of the man who´d been ringing the alarm bells as the attack started. He was young and unarmed, and a heartbeat later – his last – his dead body tumbled down along the weathered walls. Jinx sheathed her sword, leant over the edge and looked out over the city, her eyes narrowed against the suddenly biting wind. 

In the southern part, where they´d bashed down the gates, almost every house was smouldering beneath a ragged blanket of black smoke and she could clearly make out where the yeti was enjoying himself. The clash of weaponry was rising everywhere and she could still see elves doing battle on the rooftops. However, they fought against a combination of reds and green spider rides, and those two groups fit together like hand and glove. To the left and right, elves and Minions were falling off the roofs dead or mortally wounded, but those last ones were immediately caught by blue Minions, spread out through the entire city under the protection of the browns and making sure the troops stayed intact. This strategy had been thought out, and the success was partly thanks to the knowledge of Nordberg´s streets; partly Sayron´s, but Kivner knew best what the city looked like now. 

Nordberg was theirs. 

Or at least, it would be as soon as the people surrendered. If they didn´t, the Overlord would, come dawn, own nothing more than a charred heap of ashes and a lot of corpses. How would the diplomacy be coming along? Sayron would have reached the great square by now, would he? 

"Hello, Jinx." 

The creaky voice was familiar, but it cut through her thoughts so suddenly Jinx jolted and looked behind her, as if she expected someone to be standing there. Then she smiled. "Hi, Gnarl. How are things down there?" 

"In your eyes they might be fine, but that´s only on the aspect of the bloodshed. Negotiations aren´t coming along very well. Weapons are being picked up in the square, and not only by our forces." 

Jinx started grinning. "Gnarl..." 

"I´d almost be sorry," the advisor spoke with a hint of a demonic grin clearly audible in his voice, "but this asks for certain... measures." 

"We´re lucky to have a plan B, right?" 

"We´re lucky indeed," Gnarl agreed. 

"Can I?" 

A short pause. "Do everything you think necessary, Jinx, and add to that everything you think fun." 

Without even taking the time to answer, the Purple Scourge swung cheering to the middle of the bell tower.

Claws and blades cut through clothes and flesh as a hot knife through butter. Fanged jaws pierced defenceless elven necks, velvet legs threw out milky silk gleaming red in the light of the many, many fires. 

If Ramul had been able to count that far, he could have marvelled at the number of his victims thus far. He and Letho worked in deadly unison, climbing walls and jumping elves with unequalled speed. Now and then the spider floated into the streets without sound, to deal deadly bites amidst the Nordbergians themselves, if they´d been foolish enough to pick up arms against the others or the Master. 

The green was barely able to become invisible, so much soot and blood covered his mottled skin. But it was worth it. He was hissing almost continuously, out of pure battle rage, and he was very well able to equal Stabbit in his temporary insanity. He and the three other green elders had decided not to take the insane Minion with them. Stabbit wouldn´t be able to stop fighting once Nordberg surrendered. 

Despite Ramul´s significantly greater ability to compose himself, it took him a while to notice the new ringing of the bells. 

He did immediately know what it meant, however. 

The green looked up. He didn´t need to see Jinx hoisting at the bell rope to know it was her.

The negotiations had failed. 

The spider rider swung his blades through the air, so blood flew everywhere. "To me!" he hissed. "Jagged!" 

His fellow clan member turned. "Hear it," he nodded, grinning. "Everyone to us! Come!" 

"Where Hoarse?" 

Jagged looked around. "Will hear. Come on!" 

And so the spider riders and the reds who heard Jinx´ call left their elves and rebels, but they were Minions of their art – the ones they left behind alive wouldn´t see the next dawn.

High up in the tower Jinx looked on as the little lights of the red Minions streamed towards her. Of course, not all of them. But enough for the plan B she herself had proposed to Sayron. She mused to herself – earlier in her life she´d have hoped it´d work. Now she knew it would. If it didn´t, she´d improvise until she got a result at least as good as the original idea. Nordberg _would_ kneel. 

A red Minion slung his claw over the tower´s edge, not far from her face. Jinx didn´t jump as the horned, fiery glowing creature hoisted himself into the tower using hands and feet. She smiled. "Hi, Simmer. The gathering´s coming on nicely, I see." 

"Fever´s leading," the red panted. 

Jinx frowned. "Where´s Hoarse?" 

"Not as far front as Fever." 

The horde leader took her ropes off her back. She could see Simmer read her bewilderment right off her face. "Then I should go and take a look, I guess." 

"I follow," the Minion sizzled hurriedly. He jumped out of the tower, to turn in mid-air like a cat and hook on lower on the wall. Jinx followed a moment later. She switched between her two ropes to fly around the tower with increasing speed and eventually land upon a rooftop. She rolled over, freed her ropes from the tower´s crumbling cement and launched herself to the next roof, already partly whacked away by the yeti. The great beast wasn´t far away, judging by the roars, and more by the screaming. Jinx hoped the creature would survive this attack. She´d seen the Nordbergian´s spears, and though yetis didn´t often come this low the people were capable of killing them. 

The cold night air blew the sounds away. And up front she saw the swiftly moving lights of the reds. 

Simmer caught up with her, and suddenly they were in the middle of the red horde.

Glittering eyes were turned her way. "Jinxie!" 

"I hear Fever´s leading!" 

"Is! He knows way!" 

"To the storage?" Jinx frowned. She knew in which part of town the storage for which they were heading was located, but in the chaos she´d slightly lost her mental map and because of the smoke covering the city, she hadn´t been able to see it from atop the bell tower. Fever seemed to be able to feel it. She did her best to get to the front of the horde.  
>Eventually she was out of breath, but right behind Fever. She tried to gather enough air to address him, but then he suddenly stopped and pressed himself to the edge of the roof. Jinx followed his gaze, not yet able to speak. <p>

There was the storage. But it wasn´t exactly unguarded. She quickly flattened herself. 

"Kiret," the small red Minion hissed with a sizzling voice that made Jinx jolt. She hadn´t heard this much fire in a red´s voice before. 

Indeed, around the storage were the gigantic, broad men, clad in wolf skins and carrying spears in their gnarled hands. The ferocious hunters from the Nordbergian ice plains, seemingly called upon once again to defend their lands against Sayron. Jinx pressed her lips together. She´d never make it past them with just a red and green horde. Kiret didn´t burn that well, and to be honest they were only passable with pure brown muscle. If Kniff had been here, he would´ve lost his mind seeing the wolf skins… 

She realized something was tapping her shoulder. She turned and gazed into Fever´s burning eyes. He bared his pointy teeth in a smile, so his light shone out from the inside.

"Give me free passage." 

"What?" 

"Can manage alone. Get me in and… run." The way he uttered that last word made Jinx shiver for a moment. Shiver because of the cold that would soon become all-consuming heat. 

She wanted to ask further, but restrained herself. She suddenly remembered the inferno on that hilltop on Everlight, that´d turned an entire Imperial legion to ashes. This Minion wasn´t a normal red. Jinx nodded slowly. "Okay."

In the meantime, matters had turned to amateur combat in the square. Some of the Nordbergians had swords and axes, but others had to make do with torches and pitchforks – literally. There were also those who´d taken explosives from the quarry, or fireworks from the city itself. Blues, as it turned out, weren´t able to revive Minions who´d been completely blown apart. Sayron had barely been able to dodge the severed arm of a green, though the claw blades had damaged his helmet. His sword, however much he´d wanted to avoid it, was dripping with human blood. 

There were positives, too. Seffec and the Ruborians were fighting like lions to protect their Lord. Omari, the mage, turned out to be capable of great things; he was flinging long threads of dark golden light around him and forced dozens of people back or down on their knees. Seffec stayed close to Sayron; blood was dripping out of his hair and his eyes were wild. Barid, his cold sword, was at body temperature. 

Many Nordbergians attacked, with all their inexperienced spirit. Many more had stayed behind and now functioned as an uneasy audience. This wasn´t a fight. This was Nordberg´s dying groan, and Sayron knew it. 

"Jinx is on her way, Lord," Gnarl spoke calmly. "This´ll be over soon." 

"That´d better be true. This wasn´t what I had in mind, Gnarl." Sayron´s voice was icy, and sharp as daggers. Gnarl flattened his ears, even though his Master couldn´t see it. 

"Keep an eye on the horizon, Sire. It´ll be a pretty sight."

Here in the west of town, the fighting in the great square was almost inaudible. Now and then a muted thud resounded through the cold, dark air, when something exploded or the yeti flattened something. Still Jinx and the hordes laid flat on the rooftops, looking out on the storage with the Kiret around it. 

Then something jumped and floated towards the storage on a thread of ghostly silk. In the dark of this night, the gleaming black body of the spider was barely visible, and the green on her back was simply invisible. More followed. 

"I´m counting on you," Jinx hissed at Fever from the side of her mouth. "Though I don´t know why, or on what grounds. If you truly fight for Sayron, fulfil your task." 

"No worries," the red Minion grinned without taking his eyes off the spider riders. "Will do good, Jinx. Very good." 

The spiders reached the storage and lowered themselves. The green horde managed to dispatch one or two Kiret without making a sound, then they were spotted. A feral scream echoed through the night. Jinx looked to the side. "Light me." 

The metallic sound with which her ropes made contact with the storage´s roof was drowned out by the roar of the Kiret, the drawing of spears and the hiss of dozens of fireballs through the air. But nonetheless, the Purple Scourge was flying straight for the enormous hunters. She rammed her sword through the throat of the nearest one immediately, and yanked it out in a fountain of dark blood to charge at a second. She didn´t allow herself to get drawn into the fight. _An opening, that´s all we need. Fever, where are you?_

Her lack of concentration was punished by a long, deep wound along the length of her arm. She irresistibly thought back to her first real wound, also by the Kiret. Now, however, she healed it immediately. And she could keep grinning. A lone spark, bigger than the thrown fireballs, leapt over her to the storage roof. Jinx retreated slightly, followed by her broad-shouldered opponent, and saw Fever digging through the roof tiles with red-hot hands. A small jet of flame told her the roof beams were burning. Something reminiscent of fear dug into Jinx´ stomach – he shouldn't be using that much fire, not now! 

"Retreat!" she roared. The Minions reacted immediately, probably because of the pressure in her voice. They really, really needed to leave this place. 

The greens jumped back to safer roofs. Most of them made it, others were plucked from the sky by thrown Kiret spears. Jinx briefly closed her eyes – a struck spider was a dead one.

Spider blood didn´t clot. 

Then, as she was still looking up, her legs were scythed away and she was driven into the crowd of Kiret. The smell of rancid wolf fur and human sweat engulfed her as she bumped into the broad chest of one of them. 

She didn't waste words, but raised her sword right away, to let a purple light grow in her other hand. She should have known better. Kiret didn´t know fear, just their purpose – protect the storage. They had no idea Fever was already inside. 

The purple comet slammed three Kiret into the storage´s wooden doors. One of them was unhinged. Jinx could look right inside, and she was even able to see something, for inside… there was light. 

A glimpse of crates full of fireworks, sticks and boxes filled with many more. As if she needed more confirmation. Yes, indeed, this was Nordberg´s fireworks storage. And the Nordbergians liked their fireworks. Come dawn, they´d probably have other opinions. 

But there was something else, at which both Jinx and the Kiret were now staring with wide eyes. Jinx spontaneously forgot the pain in her arm and the huge men still surrounding her. The sight inside the storage was mind-boggling. Fever. Just Fever. 

The red Minion was floating in mid-air, seemingly on his own hot air current. Around him swirled a blinding tornado of fire. Jinx´ eyes were streaming with the heat, those last few moments, but still she could swear the flames formed ghostly, flickering wings around Fever´s shoulders. 

"Run, Jinx," his voice sizzled. Through the thick, trembling air, she could see him grinning. 

Then everything bloomed with a heat and light like the sun´s itself.

_Boom._

Sayron looked up. The sound had resonated down to the soles of his steel boots. At the edges of the square, people had fallen to their knees because of the tremor. 

Above the rooftops, the night sky lit up with a hellish glow. And then everything went up.  
>Blue. Red. Purple. Yellow, green and orange. Flowers, wheels, dragons of light and fire – but there was nothing festive about it, at least not for the Nordbergians. Sayron noticed a broad grin stretching the corners of his mouth – a smile he hadn´t shown since his childhood, though his mouth had been hidden from sight even then. The Overlord felt like he was back in the days he himself had demolished the Midwinter Tree with gigantic pieces of firework.<p>

How fitting. 

The heat rolled over them. Burning remains, some as large as the houses, started to come down, randomly distributed across Nordberg. Sayron destroyed some of them with blue lightning as they came too close to the square. Shock after shock thundered through the city. No one thought of fighting anymore – most of the people had shrunken down with their hands over their heads. Whatever was left of the elves was running through the burning streets, out of town. 

Sayron burst into laughter. Inside, he was cheering with triumph; he didn´t care large portions of the city were ruined and being ruined. What was destroyed could be rebuilt. _His_ way. For who would ever seek to take Nordberg from him now? 

A small spark arched through the sky from the origin of the inferno, up through the smoky, brightly lit sky and then gently floated down. Unlike the other sparks, it didn´t lose brightness. The light landed in a street not far from the great square. Kniff followed it with keen eyes. His gaze wandered to the point where the alley came out on the square. Not much later, Fever came strolling out. 

The brown Minion ran for him. "Fever!" 

The red looked up. His black-lined eyes were burning like hellfire, and Kniff backed away.

"Yes?" he hissed. 

"Jinxie… what…" 

"Big bang," Fever grinned. "Don´t know." 

Kniff´s eyes flickered. He bared his teeth in a savage growl and he struck, not with his dagger, but with a claw. Fever dodged him and grabbed his wrist. Kniff´s skin hissed. "No, Minion." He sounded very different now. "Not against me. Don't even think about it." 

Then he let go, and Kniff felt all fury flooding away from him. At the same moment, his heart dropped, and hope and despair mixed into terrible expectation.

There were still fireworks going off around the storage. It would take a while until everything had stopped exploding. Up this close, the surroundings were of a strange beauty, equaled by that of a tidal wave towering over you, or the eye of a hurricane. 

There was, however, a little purple speck. And it wasn´t firework. 

With a stubbornness that´d seemingly be saving her life forever, Jinx shot out of the inferno´s heart, protected by a thin purple shield. A few red Minions ran with her. They would have been able to survive the fire, but the force of the explosion was a different story. Some spider riders had possibly made it, fast enough to outrun the explosions, and they´d had a head start, but Fever had condemned quite a few of his own clan members to death. 

Jinx had never before managed to create a shield. Her own face showed the most surprise. Her magic kept surprising her. 

But, of course, Fever was no different. 

He´d been floating. She was still astonished as she rushed through the exploding wrecks of Nordberg, protected by a purple bubble, Simmer and a few other reds running along next to her as if the devil was on their heels and they actually feared such a thing. 

He´d been floating. Minions weren´t supposed to be floating. At least, not reds, she quietly added as she thought back to Gnarl´s true form, black and winged. 

Fever had shown her wings of raging fire. Stabbit had healed mortal wounds with his own green magic. The Minions with the black-lined eyes kept surprising her, and she didn´t know whether they were part of the horde or just playing along and enjoying the show. She was starting to see the probability of the last. 

The explosions started to decrease in ferocity. The fire continued, but she was catching up with it. The houses were recognizable here. She looked back; nothing but flame, charred and charring remains. At least a quarter of town, or more, had turned to ashes. 

She recognized the houses here, and she also knew the sound growing more clear with every second. She gestured at the Minions and swung up a roof. Her shield silently burst.  
>There was the square. There were only exhilarated Minion voices, despite the amount of humans. There were no elves in sight. <p>

Before her eyes, the Nordbergians slowly sank to their knees before Sayron. Weapons clattered to the ground. 

"Mead for us again!"

"Yay! Yay!"

"Who´s coming with to roast seal?" 

They´d been successful. Jinx´ face split in a grin. It became wider as the Overlord looked up; his eyes changed colour in a way betraying joy and relief. He hadn´t been sure whether she was still alive… 

The horde started to follow Sayron´s gaze. Yellow eyes brightened and toothy grins were shown. A heartbeat later Kniff and Fever ran into the square together, and as Fever grinned self-satisfactorily, Kniff was cheering. 

Sayron chuckled deeply. "Congratulations, dark warriors. Nordberg is ours. Kivner, make sure they know what is expected of them. I´m sure you´ll enjoy the time with your people, my lieutenant." 

Kivner put up such big eyes they nearly rolled out of his head. The madness in them was almost drowned out by his joy. "Certainly, my Lord!" 

Sayron winked and swept his arm upwards, and the just barely buried Tower Gate once again drilled through the cobblestones. Leaving two hundred tough Minions, half of the city in flames and most of the surviving populace in mortal fear and awe, the Overlord and his followers left the city. The surviving elves sped away from their lost bastion, and all of them heard the rapidly approaching howl of grey wolves in the wilderness. 

In the Netherworld, a thin ray of blue light shot up from the blue Hive. One single egg had glowed for a blinding moment.

To the west, across the sea… 

Tropical birdsong wove a way between elegantly formed branches, dense canopies and countless hanging flowers. The beauty of this place was in sharp contrast with the mood of its queen. 

In her palace, high in the branches, Fay had let herself down upon her throne made out of living wood, her head supported by a pale, elegant hand. Her eyes were sad, but hard. In front of her stood her most trusted advisor, and he´d just brought bad news. 

Florian ran a hand through his messy blonde hair. "I´m sorry, milady. There was little even we could do to keep Nordberg. I returned as the Scourge was still approaching, but I don't doubt the fact the city now burns. The last sighting suggests his troops are almost indestructible now. We weren´t ready." 

"I feel the dying of our people, there in the north," Fay spoke with her musical voice. "There is nothing we can do now. We are being overrun. He will trample everything that opposes him, like the Empire has done for years." 

"You shouldn´t think that way." 

The queen abruptly rose, so her dress whirled about her as if gravity didn´t affect it. "Look around you, Florian! Orntal is the last safe haven." 

"We still have the Last Sanctuary…" 

"He will find it. The Empire _and_ his demons have been in the area and they will return. It is only a matter of time." Tears bloomed in Fay´s eyes, and little blue flowers bloomed around her throne in reaction. "His troops are growing with the hour. We have no chance if we keep fighting him. Light magic has no chance left." 

Florian widened his green eyes, and he seemed truly shocked for the first time. "You don't mean…" 

"We are both magical," Fay spoke with a bitter, ironic smile. "He seems to like me. It is the logical solution, Florian. The Empire will try to crush us both, and I can´t let it succeed. Solarius must be brought down, and it is time for sacrifices to be made. If he returns to the Wasteland, I will be waiting for him."

That same day Nordberg was transformed. 

Jinx and Seffec managed – disguised with stolen Imperial garments and guided by Cariatia, the girl from Drearius´ villa who´d been adopted by Kelda – to return to the slums of Arcadiopolis and to speak with the people there. Jinx was still regarded as their champion, even more so now they´d brought down the Arena. Seffec spoke of great things that weren´t even that far-flung – seas of fire, power and domination, victory and freedom.

Sayron´s version of freedom was debatable, Jinx thought to herself, but everything would be better than the slums. A Tower Gate turned out to be able to last for five minutes beneath the weakened shield over the area. Five minutes turned out to be enough for those desiring to come over to the dark side. 

Five minutes of people turned out to be enough to replace the Nordbergians who´d rather flee into the wilderness than side with Sayron. 

That same day Nordberg was transformed into the upper world capital of the Netherworld, fully populated by people faithful to Sayron, with Kivner as their vigilant eye. The Minions in the new city were treated well and honoured, just like the guardians of the brainwashed Ignavopolis. Sayron´s second dominion over the town had turned out far better than the first, but then again, he´d gained a lot of experience since then.

As Jinx was busy evacuating the slums and refurbishing Nordberg, Sayron was busy with other matters entirely. 

"Congratulations on your victory, my love," Juno said, gently pushing him down upon the gigantic bed in the private quarters. She lay down beside him. Kelda did the same on his other side. Sayron looked between them in pleasant surprise; this was the first time both his loved ones were in one room without trying to rip each other apart. 

The ginger Nordbergian smiled broadly, and she was more beautiful than ever. "I´m glad to see our city is finally behaving itself, Sayron. You´ve got something to celebrate." She removed his helmet and kissed him like she hadn´t kissed him for a long time. In the meantime, Juno busied herself removing other parts of his armour. 

Sayron decided that going through his next ventures with Gnarl could wait. The private quarters were about to become very private.

The soft sound of chisels to inky black basalt resounded through the throne room as Jinx returned. She gently floated down in the azure light, landed on the familiar, warm marble floor and looked up. 

The sculptors had been hard at work. Where there´d only been two faint outlines of wings covering the walls to the sides of the throne, they were fully detailed now. The angular bones beneath the thin skin were almost tangible. Every vein had been given shape. Not for the first time, Jinx realized the Minions weren´t doing this by themselves, but were inspired by something else entirely. 

Above the throne, three remaining structures of indestructible granite loomed into the great hall. They were still rough, but Jinx noticed she was involuntarily shivering. 

"_Run, Jinx._"

Two Minions were strolling upwards across the basalt of the area where the Hives were being kept. They were on their way to the waterfalls where the blues had constructed their gleaming, waterproof dwellings, but neither of them bore ear webs. One of them was red and faintly grinning, the other was green and constantly giggling. 

They reached the Hive and bent over the water of one of the small basins worn out into the rock. Fever did so with visible repulsion of the water, but Stabbit almost fell over. 

In the other basins, the water was teeming with tadpoles, their bodies round and light blue, their tails a subtle hint of pink. They already possessed the yellow eyes marking them as the larvae of blue Minions. But there was only one of them in this basin. He was swollen, and he already had thin front legs. Fever – able to think clearly, in contrast to Stabbit – knew this larva had devoured the others in his pool, bones and all. As they rightfully should. 

The two Minions each outstretched a hand to the larva. As they touched him, he writhed wildly and closed his eyes, and before theirs, his front legs grew to become arms, back legs developed and soon became real legs, and the tail repositioned to the position of an adult blue Minion´s. 

Their brother. There, newborn, naked, with closed eyes and ear webs just being raised along the sides of his head, was their brother. They were complete. 

"What do you call yourself?" Fever asked. Stabbit stopped giggling. 

The blue Minion raised his head. Then he opened his eyes. They were as round as the other blues´, but inky black-lined. He grinned and thus bared his razor-sharp fish-catching teeth. 

"Goudvis." 

Fever grinned. Stabbit showed the exact same expression. Three pairs of demonic eyes deeply pierced each other. 

The three gripped each other´s hands firmly. Fever didn´t leave burns on the other two, and Stabbit´s claws didn´t seem to do any damage either. 

"When would we walk the earth again, they wondered," Goudvis smiled. "They´ll know the answer soon enough."

**General: That was a brilliant plan Commander**

**Jinx: And it was a lot of fun, though I'm still wondering about Fever**

**General: Indeed, he and Stabbit are certainly unusual Minions. I'll keep an eye on them.**

**Jinx: So we have Nordberg under our control, again. Any idea where Sayron is?**

**General: He is… busy. In the Private Quarters. With Kelda and Juno.**

**Jinx: Oh, right. Okay then.**

**General: Yeah, readers please review. Commander, I think we should practise your shield magic. It really saved your bacon.**

**Jinx: Sure, till next time readers.**


	24. Heartbeat of the Past

**General: It is good to be back, and that was fun. Nordberg once again flies the Overlord's banner.**

**Velvet: If you recall my daughter led the important part of the mission to break their spirits. Sayron merely led his troops through the front door.**

**General: Will you get over yourself? Look, Sayron is the Master, Jinx is the Commander, you don't like it then why don't you ask Sayron if he'll let Jinx be in charge?**

**Velvet: There are other ways to get what I want.**

**Velvet leaves**

**General: She really creeps me out, anyway I do not own this story all credit goes to Sunjinjo on deviantart as does her OC Jinx. Enjoy.**

**Heartbeat of the Past**

He could feel it now.

He´d long been able to ignore it, this pulling, alluring power. But now there was nothing left between him and the pearly light. 

_Go, Sayron. Bring it. Heal it. And claim it._

Waterfalls of blue light flanked the pearly glow, and he knew what they were. Lethal, mutating magical ooze. The groundwater of the Wasteland. That name had been chosen correctly – the area was teeming with life, but it had fallen to waste, all of it; hideously deformed, even by his standards. 

But the light pulled him closer, and he could no longer ignore it. Nordberg had been brought to its knees. His next steps were the Empire and light magic. But before he´d be able to handle them, he´d need the Tower Heart. 

And the Tower Heart lay in shards, scattered in the most dangerous area of the known world. 

Thus the Overlord pondered the path ahead of him, staring up at the sculpted basalt ceiling of his bedchamber, both his Mistresses sleeping next to him. It couldn´t be much later than five in the morning, but he was unable to sleep again. 

He´d go.

Jinx was troubled by the exact same problem. Halfway through the artificial, Netherworldly night she´d silently jumped out of her shared barrack and taken the floating rock, to pace around the trapdoor in the throne room for a while. Now and then she´d looked up at the three structures, apparently destined to become the three heads of the winged beast that dominated the wall above the throne. It still made her uncomfortable. 

Back to the Wasteland. 

She didn´t want to. 

She still remembered the final gurgling Parch had brought forth as her dagger stabbed into his stomach. His hideous transformation from fiery red to sickly pink, with mismatched eyes without pupils and a lolling tongue. 

It would happen again. They´d only scouted a minuscule part of the area, and there was so much more ooze behind the barricade Parch had failed to open. It _would_ happen again, no matter how hard she´d try to prevent it. 

Jinx pulled herself up to the middle structure above the throne, to sit down and think. She still knew better than sit onto the throne itself, even now. 

Kniff wasn´t coming along. She decided that then and there. She wouldn´t allow her friend setting as much as one foot into that terrible land. They´d need a small horde, so they wouldn´t attract any unwanted attention while gathering the shards. More blues than the other three clans together, they´d be needed the hardest… 

In the throne room Jinx started to select her horde, grim and analytical.

Finally Sayron came into the great hall, visibly concerned and tired. A while before that, Gnarl had appeared, and Jinx had told him of her ideas. He´d taken them into consideration, but now Sayron stepped for the throne he looked up. "Good morning, Sire." The depression seemingly clouding the entire Netherworld was also audible in his old, broken voice. 

"Good morning, Gnarl; Jinx." Sayron sat down on the throne. "Well. There´s no reason not to continue now we have the chance." 

"The Wasteland," Jinx said softly. "No, I think we should head there today. Was that your plan as well, Lord?" 

Sayron nodded silently. 

"Those shards should be found as soon as possible," Gnarl said. "I suspect they lie scattered in a wide radius around the old Tower, as that was the centre of the explosion. There are maps of the old lands; the area probably covers the Mellow Hills, large parts of Angelis, the dwarven lands and Ruboria…" Jinx leant against a wall and felt herself calm down listening to Gnarl´s voice. As long as he was talking, everything was fine. As long as the old advisor still had a plan, everything was alright. 

"…and Jinx had the idea of taking a small horde along, with the most talented Minions she selected herself, so you won´t attract too much attention in the area and can still search for the shards as fast as possible. Is it not, Jinx?" 

"Yes," she said hurriedly, aware of Gnarl´s piercing gaze. "I´ll get us the best horde we´ve ever had, Lord." 

"That sounds good to me. I´m glad to have such a good horde leader." Sayron folded his arms. "Of course, it´s also in your hands whether we make it or disappear into blue ooze." 

"No pressure," Gnarl winked.

Kniff was on lookout at the moment the floating rock docked at the Barracks. He was alone on the edge of the abyss – the other Minions were busy practicing their fighting skills, relieving the shifts posting at the Hives, eating or hunting. He was the only one who would do something as useless as waiting for someone. 

But the rock came, and Jinx was on it. He jumped and ran for her. "Jinxie! Going today?" 

Jinx stepped off and leant against a stalagmite. "Yep. But, Kniff…" 

"Back to Wasteland! Make Tower Heart whole again… see old Tower… going to be great!" His face fell slightly as he undoubtedly remembered Parch. "Also dangerous, but still…" 

"Kniff, you´re not coming with us." 

The Minion had opened his mouth already, but his next words died in his throat. The excited expression slowly melted off his face. "…What?" he asked, incredulously and very softly. 

Jinx slid down the rock. "You can´t come, Kniff." 

"But always come…" 

"Not this time, buddy. We need a small horde, with selected Minions…" She didn´t say she was the one who´d selected them, and they were the best she could find. She looked away and thought back to the time Kniff had taught _her_ to hunt and kill, fight and ignore pain. Now she was stronger than he was, and she could tell him what to do. It didn´t feel good. 

"…But…" 

She pulled him close. "I don´t want you to die, Kniff. Not like Parch." 

"…Don't want you to die either…" he murmured into her hair. "Have to look after you, Jinxie." He let go and looked at her with serious, glowing eyes. "You look after horde, but I always watch over you…" 

"I´ll be careful, buddy." She smiled faintly. "I´ll be back. I always come back. And then we´ll storm Arcadiopolis together." 

The Minion gave her a hurt look. But she knew he´d listen to her. She just hoped it´d be as a friend, not as a lower-ranking horde member. "I promise, Kniff." 

"Okay then." He sighed. Then he gave her a lopsided grin. "Will watch in pool. Faster than Gnarl if he tries to kick me." 

Jinx hugged him one last time and hoped it wouldn´t be the very last time. "I´ll bring you a souvenir." 

And with that, she rose, pulled her ropes taut and stepped onto the rock. She wouldn´t be seeing the Netherworld for some time.

The return was enough to wrench the air from everyone´s lungs. 

Nothing had changed. Every detail was the same, and everything recalled the last disastrous time they´d been here. The rushing of the lifeless wind, the jagged, claw-like rocks, the inky sky with the blue glow at the horizon… Strange growths scraped a living in dark corners, and everywhere, so very clearly, was the presence of uncontrolled, sick magic. This was a _wrong_ place to be. 

The azure light from the Tower Gate was a comfortingly familiar sight, but they soon left that sight behind them. Sayron stepped swiftly on over the path leading down, to the valley where the pools of ooze lay spread out over the dark, lifeless soil. They were glowing. Fortunately the slugs were gone. 

Parch had died here. His body was gone; it´d probably been taken by whatever bizarre scavengers this land was home to. Jinx was glad of it. She probably wouldn´t have been able to bear the sight of his deformed skeleton. 

The Minions formed an uneasy group. 

Jinx looked over them, now they´d come together here. She´d only taken three members of the brown clan; Stripe, Gloob and Aches. Those three should be enough in a fight, for they were the strongest and they had been the strongest for quite a while. Aches would probably give her some trouble, because he still didn´t fully accept her leadership, but she´d taken him anyway – he was very strong and almost fought more ferociously than Stripe. 

The reds and greens, too, were with three. She´d chosen the two most fiery and the current master climber from the red clan; Hoarse, Fever and Simmer. From the greens, she´d selected Stabbit as he was the toughest and would maybe even be able to withstand the ooze, and Jagged and Ramul to keep him in check. With the blues she´d told Zap and Soaker to gather a team that would be good at cooperation. They were with six, led by Soaker. Among them was an individual with black-lined eyes. As he´d tumbled from the blue Minion gate, Jinx´ heart had dipped for a moment. _Three_ Minions with those eyes? Fever and Stabbit had caused enough strange events, but a blue? They were mysterious and unpredictable at the best of times… 

A horde of fifteen was very small compared to the armies they´d marched around with on the last few missions, but it was enough for a scouting voyage. Back in Nordhaven and in the Everlightian jungle, the hordes had barely been bigger. 

The blue Minion with the black-lined eyes walked to a glowing pool of ooze, together with the rest of his clan. Soaker had remained standing at the edge, staring down with round frog´s eyes. There was no telling what went on in his head right now, but he´d heard about the fate of the Minions that´d gone before him in great detail. 

He outstretched a webbed hand and moved it over the pool. 

The ooze hissed, splashed and sunk away into the soil. The blue Minion stepped forward and stayed there for a moment. The ooze didn´t return. It seemed to avoid the blue like water on red-hot metal. Sayron´s eyes were wide with excitement, and Jinx held her breath.  
>Then the representation of the blue leader stepped away, and a few moments later the ooze came back up to bring the pool back to its former size. It was temporary… but it worked! <p>

_"As long as the blues stand in it, the ooze stays away,"_ Gnarl concluded slowly. _"Perfect. This way… well, just imagine what will happen to pursuers who don´t make it to you in time, Lord,"_ he chuckled. _"Only you will have free passage."_

"Good," the Overlord spoke softly. "We can move on." 

After the rest of the blue horde had tested their skills on several pools, they walked over to the large pool, with the barricade on its other side. Jinx could still see the scratches Parch´ claws had made in the overhanging rock as he lost his grip and… 

…the blues freed a splashing path to the other side. The lighting blue drops glistened in the air, and then the ooze was gone. Sayron and the horde uneasily walked over to the other side, Jinx quickly followed between the two rows of blues. As they, too, followed, the pool closed itself behind them. There was no going back. 

The three browns and Jagged started turning the wheel. The barricade came up slowly. 

_"Are these barricades to keep something in or keep something out?"_ Gnarl pondered. _"Hm, either way, they won´t be stopping you, Great One!"_

With a thud, the wood reached its highest point and they walked underneath it. The path curved between jagged, black rocks, and Jinx knew none of them was able to climb them; they were gleaming in a way betraying their slipperiness, and they were so sharp they´d probably slice right through her ropes. Hopefully there were other types of rock in this land.  
>Then they rounded the curve in the ravine path, and Jinx gasped. Next to her, Sayron froze.<br>In front of them lay a collection of creaky houses. Clotheslines with colourless clothes on them were spanned between the roofs. Miserable people with overlarge eyes looked at them from everywhere, just as shocked as the Overlord and his horde themselves. 

_"Unholy…"_ Gnarl started softly. 

"That´s it!" someone shouted. "They´ve sent the Demon Lord of Nordberg to finish us off!" A half-hearted sort of panic broke out in the little village, but some people walked straight at them. All of them had a pale skin and deep, lifeless eyes. A painfully thin man looked up at Sayron pleadingly. "Look, we´ve got enough problems, ok?" he spoke, breathlessly and rasping. "They kicked us out of the city, claimed that we were contaminated with magic… ridiculous!" He burst into a wheezing fit of coughing and turned away. A second man grabbed Jinx´ arm, so she backed away involuntarily – his wide eyes were wild and his breath smelled strange. "Or we no longer ´fitted´ into the Glorious Empire… they dumped us here to die…" 

The coughing man bent over and flailed about him. "Get back… Get back… Stay away from me!" 

Jinx´ man turned in horror. "Arrgh! He´s mutated!" 

Jinx looked on as the healthy man hid behind her. The coughing man started giving up blood, but at the same time his body changed, until he was as hunchbacked as the mutated Minions had been. His eyes enlarged and his pupils disappeared. In the end, his elongated tongue hung out of his drooling mouth and he came limping towards her. 

That was too much. 

The horde leader drew her sword and cleaved the mutant in two with a scream of fear and aggression. The two halves thudded into the black dust. 

It became quiet. The man came out from behind Jinx. There was fear in his overlarge eyes, but also surprise. She could see he was bewildered by the fact she was as scared as he was.

"You´re the Purple Scourge," he mumbled, his eyes fixed on her one moment, averted the next. 

Jinx looked up. "Sayron…" 

"The Empire is more evil than I am," he muttered. "Can´t have that." 

Jinx had been busy with nothing but Nordberg for the past few days, and so her thoughts immediately went there now. "Sayron… if they´re still healthy…" 

"Good people," the Overlord started, "do you hate Emperor Solarius?" 

"Quite," the man next to Jinx growled softly. 

"Barely enough to eat," it sounded from within the village. 

"The water can´t be trusted." 

"Slugs and carrion crows everywhere…" 

"This is hell…" 

"And every now and then there´s a mutation wave," the man with the large eyes spoke, looking around with a hunted look. "No one knows when it´s his turn." 

Faces appeared from the creaky houses. Men, women and even children. Jinx felt a sting of uncharacteristic pity. She´d thought she´d been unlucky in the slums. Now it became clear what had happened to the disappearing people condemned by Solarius. Things could always be worse. Always. 

"We can´t leave anyone behind," she hissed to Sayron. 

"Oh, watch me. These are former fat Imperials in most cases." 

"They _hate_ the Emperor! Can you even imagine how deep their vengeance will go?" 

"I´m not saying I _will_ leave them here. I´m just saying I could." Sayron looked over the sorry bunch of people. "But just for myself. I´ll let them fight. The fact I give them their own revenge is purely coincidal." He exchanged a glowing glance with Jinx, and they both knew what was meant here. _Keep it quiet, will you. I´m the Demon Lord, all in all._ "We´ll see who´s healthy enough. We can´t have the magical plague breaking out in Nordberg." He raised his voice. "People of the Wasteland! I offer you an escape. My Minions will escort you to a camp outside Nordberg town. There you´ll stay for two weeks. Those mutating during that time will be killed by my horde. The rest may stay in Nordberg until I call you out to march against the Empire." He spread his arms in invitation. 

Silence became mumbling. Mumbling became shouting. Shouting became a crowd streaming towards them. 

Sayron looked back. "Soaker, clear the way. Make sure no one loses his footing… some are a bit unstable." The blue leader nodded and walked back the way they´d come.

As soon as everyone had disappeared through the Gate they had the empty village for themselves. They went through the belongings the people hadn´t taken with them – rough tables and chairs, mats that´d been used as beds, dried food. The people had apparently lived off mutated animals, carefully skinned and roasted, but still glowing blue in some places. The healthiest probably hadn´t been here for very long. There was no surviving on the long term in this place. 

"We´ll have to be quick," Sayron concluded. "If we don´t find the shards in time, we´ll have to get back to the Netherworld and continue later. Gnarl, is it possible to dig out another gate further into the area?" 

_"Probably, Sire. As soon as it´s needed, or if there´s suitable soil, I´ll send out Grubby."  
><em> 

"Good." The Overlord paused. "That said, I think we'd better leave." 

Jinx smiled. "I'm ready. I was prepared to be jumped by who knows what kind of creatures behind that barricade." 

Sayron's eyes wrinkled. Then he turned away and trod off through the village. 

On the other side was another barricade, and it was operated the same way as the first. When it had been turned open, the ravine path continued. It seemed as if the villagers had hid in a relatively sheltered valley, a broadened part of this crack in the hard, smooth rock.  
>Something scrambled over the rocks above them. <p>

Jinx immediately pulled her ropes from her shoulders, but then realized she wouldn´t be able to climb here. She swore – she was powerless, and she would have to wait for the creature to jump them… if it hadn´t been a figment of her imagination. But others were also looking up, and she didn´t doubt her own hearing yet, for it could compete with that of a Minion. 

It resounded again. And once more, but now from the other side of the path. Stripe turned around, his narrowed eyes scanning the edges of the ravine and his ears pointing up rigidly under his centurion helmet. He was growling softly. 

A little sound bounced off the black walls. It resembled… bleating? 

Then two creatures jumped down, into the gorge. 

Jinx and Stripe immediately had their swords at the ready, Gloob and Aches were a heartbeat later. But no one struck as they saw what was attacking them. 

Bulbous, glowing blue eyes on two sides of a blunt head. A short, withered body with clawed feet, but covered in the ragged, filthy remains of… wool. 

Jinx backed away, not sure whether to laugh or shiver in revulsion. For what was attacking them were two mutants that´d once bounced around in the Mellow Hills, beneath a blue sky filled with clouds as woolly as themselves. What she was looking at now were two sheep from the lands once surrounding Spree. 

The sheep uttered a rattling growl and crept around the group with a bloodthirst that wouldn´t look too bad on a wolf. To the Minions´ surprise they didn´t seem to have problems climbing the vertical walls of the gorge to continue their circling. There were carnivorous teeth in their once adorable mouths. 

Stabbit broke the spell by launching himself atop the front sheep. But even he faced a surprise; there was some glowing blood, but the sheep were just as agile as him and by climbing the slippery walls with claws seemingly made for it, they managed to shake him off.  
>The other creature thudded down in front of Goudvis, but its raised claw seemed to be halted for a fraction of a second as the blue Minion looked him squarely in the eyes. A heartbeat later, the beast was rolling around screaming in agony, its fur suddenly ablaze. Hoarse and Fever hadn´t hesitated any longer. <p>

The first sheep managed to avoid them by staying on the walls, but eventually it, too, left a smoky trail and fell down. A last, rattling growl, and it became silent. 

Sayron stepped to the remains. The scorching flesh retracted from far too sharp, irregular teeth. "What kind of magic _is_ this?" he muttered. "I can´t imagine my father once used this power through the Heart…" 

"Lord!" 

He looked up. Jinx came running back from behind a curve in the path, further into the gorge. Her mood seemed to have changed radically, as she had an excited look in her eyes. "A shard, Lord! Bring the blues… it´s in a pool." 

Soaker and his clan hurried after her. Sayron followed, just in time to see the ooze retracting. And yes, there was a large shard of a material he hadn´t seen for a long time now – he´d tucked the two shards he´d acquired earlier away in the deepest parts of the Tower, close to the tip of the stalactite. If they´d become unstable, not too much of his domain would perish. 

Nacre, but not with random streaks of colour. This shard was so large the shapes were clearly visible. He could have sworn a face was looking at him, from within a helmet that wasn´t too different from that which hid his own face right now. He quickly looked up, but the rock walls hid Vessperion´s Tower from his eyes at the moment. 

Jinx picked up the shard and put it safely in the dragon leather sack she carried on her back. If anyone was able to get everywhere to collect shards in unexpected places, it was her, and so she´d been given the honour of carrying them. 

She didn´t know if she appreciated that honour enough.

It was cold. 

Seffec pulled his scarf tighter. He wasn´t used to wearing this much clothing at once, but he wasn´t built to walk around Nordberg with less. During the battle he´d been moving enough to keep warm, and his armour had been insulating enough to even get him to sweat, but now… it was cold. 

_Barid._

Nordberg was still smoking in the autumn chill. Parts of the city had been transformed into charred remains, and there was both snow and ash falling from the sky, a day after the great fire. But in the parts still inhabitable, new people were moving into the houses. In various points a black flag was hoisted high, fluttering wildly in the harsh wind. And the burnt buildings were being rebuilt even now. 

Seffec looked out over the great square, a hand on the hilt of his scimitar. Nordbergians, Ruborians, Imperials. He smiled. Sayron was actually succeeding in uniting the entire world under his black banner. And everyone treated the Minions well, and received sharp-fanged grins in return. They remained with two hundred, however. Sayron would never forget what had happened when he´d kept it at fifty. 

Then, straight ahead, an azure light blazed up from the Tower Gate. He jolted. Some of his fellow guardians joined him. 

People started appearing between the black spikes. Hesitantly, they stepped to the cobblestones. 

They were pale and thin, with overlarge eyes. No, not pale – their skin was almost grey. 

A few Minions followed them, clearly straight from the Netherworld itself. They drove the people across the square in a hurry, to the city gates – being mended for a second time and still hanging open. Seffec followed them with a shocked gaze as they walked past below him. 

Some of them looked up. Seffec recognized typical Imperial faces. "Where do you come from?" he asked. 

"Wasteland," one of the men answered. He smiled weakly. "It´s nice up here." 

Seffec breathed in deeply. People? _There?_ He bent over to one of the Minions accompanying the people. "Where are you taking them?" 

"Camp outside walls," the brown spoke. "Have to build, but will happen fast. Take down some broken houses for wood." 

"Will do." The Ruborian leant back. "Did the Overlord pick them up?" 

The Minion nodded. "Are deeper in area now." 

"Wish them good luck, if you can." 

The brown saluted and then ran after the rest. Seffec stayed behind. 

Omari seemed to have appeared out of thin air behind him. He placed a slender brown hand on his shoulder. "They´ll do it, _fahid_. They´ve faced greater peril." 

"So did we. And still the disease drove us out of Ruboria." Seffec folded his arms on the balustrade above the square. "I just hope the Purple Scourge won´t be glowing blue when I see her next." 

Omari bared his white teeth in a grin. "No need to worry about her, _fahid_." 

Seffec stared at the Tower Gate in silence.

The travellers continued their journey through the gorge for the rest of that day. It seemed to know no end, and none of them could climb up to see how far the ravine continued.

Eventually they made camp, as good as unsheltered, but still they were glad to have some rest. A nightshift of browns and greens was appointed, and after a meal of dried Nordbergian meat they tried to get some sleep. 

Neither Sayron nor Jinx had much success. There wasn´t much difference in day and night here, as the sky remained inky black, but still it had become darker in some way. Now it became apparent the rock walls around them were covered in alien-like vegetation that slowly started to glow in purple, yellow and blue. It was unusual, but after some time Jinx found it strangely beautiful. 

She rolled over. Next to her, between her and Sayron, lay the sack with the lone shard. How long would it take to complete the Heart? She sighed. At the same moment a snore escaped Sayron. So he´d got to sleep… 

She was tired. She wasn´t used to walking these distances anymore, and her feet were sore. How she wished she could have climbed here… 

With her head on her arm, Jinx slowly dozed off. "Sleep tight, Kniff," she muttered, then her eyes closed.

Far away in the Netherworld, Gnarl slept as well. His slumber mostly was short and alert, because the Master could need him at any minute. He´d never needed much sleep during his long, long life; after all, evil never really slept. 

Now his large, old eyes moved rapidly behind his wrinkly eyelids. The Minion Master was dreaming. 

Six glowing eyes in the deep darkness. 

_We´re all here, Gnarl. What say you?_

"You´re one, Lord," he uttered. "And I hope everything is to your liking." 

_Not quite. But she carries the shards. It is a beginning._

"Why are you so fixed on Jinx? She´s just a mortal." 

_That´s what you think. It´s good my eyes are still on this world. She´s far more interesting than you think, Minion._

"We´ll see…" Gnarl turned abruptly as a light began glowing behind him. In the lower regions of the Tower, his body turned as well, in the Iron Maiden he slept in. He didn´t so much as scratch himself on the razor-sharp spikes. He oiled them regularly, but they never harmed him in any way. 

There, on the ceiling, the throne room portal came into sight. The blue light lit the vaults, the banners, and the throne. And the sculpture above it. It was fully completed now, and three dragon heads arched into the great hall. Their eyes glistened. 

And became real. 

Three pairs of glowing yellow eyes now looked at him from this side. Gnarl stooped to the floor. "Lord…" 

But the dragon ignored him. The heads arched down with a creaking of ancient basalt. Gnarl followed the triple gaze. There, on the centre of the trapdoor, two figures had appeared, and they were none less than Sayron and Jinx. They weren´t looking at the dragon, however, but at each other. With murder in their eyes. Sayron´s armour was caked in blood, Jinx´ face was filthy with soot and covered in scratches. 

Though apart from them, the throne room was empty, Minion voices were echoing everywhere, screaming and growling. It seemed as if a fight was going on throughout the entire Tower… 

Then the stone dragon spread his wings. The wall behind the throne shattered. The trapdoor opened and the two figures standing on it fell through. 

Gnarl outstretched a hand to them, but there was nothing he could do. He could only listen as his Master and the horde leader fell to their deaths, screaming.

Jinx screamed. 

Strangely enough, she was still bothered by vertigo. When she walked over the rickety bridges at the barracks, she still didn´t dare to look down, unless she was holding on to her ropes firmly. But the idea of falling still wasn´t her favorite. 

And now she fell through the trapdoor in the throne room, straight through the Tower. Black stone walls flashed past, then the abyss opened for her. A glowing orange maw without end, and there was nothing she could do. 

She clawed around and tumbled over until she could look up. There was the Tower, the chunks of basalt circling around it as if in some weightless dance. Unreachable. No ropes. No hope. Only falling, falling… 

A dark shadow tumbled past and to a point deep below her, as if to catch her, but she would still crash against it…! 

Falling, falling… and then darkness.

"Houses!" 

Ramul´s voice rang out through the gorge, and out. Finally – after another half a day of traveling – they´d reached a new open plain. The rock walls made way for an endless black sky, and a true sea of blue ooze casting a poisonous glow up to those dark heavens. 

Jinx climbed out uneasily, immediately followed by Sayron´s towering figure. She was mostly silent today, and lost in thought. Faint memories of the dream of that night went through her head – Sayron looking at her in murderous rage, a three-headed dragon… 

She looked up, and out over the slightly uneven plains of ooze. At the edge – shore? coast? – were, indeed, some wooden buildings. 

A second village? This close to the ocean of ooze…? 

Ramul, still leading the way, turned invisible and moved towards the rickety shacks carefully. He peered in. Then his eyes widened and he hissed in shock. A gurgling growl was his answer. 

The growl spread over the shacks, a sound only faintly human. Ramul came shooting back and remained next to Sayron, hissing and spitting, his eyes wild and his claws spread.  
>There they were, the people who´d populated this outpost, perhaps not even that long ago. Only a day´s travel from the original village, but close enough to the ooze and the sick magic for them to simply succumb – shambling, with a grey, mottled skin and blindingly glowing eyes. They were still wearing their human clothes, torn and covered in all sorts of substances, among which certainly blood and drool. Some, who´d retained their humanity for a little while longer, lay in the dust as rotting corpses, ripped to shreds by their former friends. <p>

All turned to beasts in this land. 

Swords, claw knives and fireballs were pulled out. The creatures who´d once been humans would die like beasts as well. 

Jinx half expected the persons they´d once been would shine through upon their deaths, but they didn´t. The mutants, like Parch, just brought forth a last gurgle and stopped moving. She saw it yet another time: magic was irreversible in many cases. 

As she wiped her sword and put it away, faint images shot through her mind again: a three-headed dragon, falling without ropes, Sayron looking at her with hatred and a strange fear. At the same time, a thought occurred to her. If these people had been changed by the Wasteland… what kind of irreversible things had the Netherworld done to her? She most certainly no longer was who she´d been when she was fished from the Tamesa. Was there some sort of transforming curse on her, too? 

Something prodded her with a spiky elbow. She looked down. Aches was looking up at her boldly. "Come." 

She tried not to feel irked by the fact he treated her like a newborn. "Yeah, yeah." She looked up and saw Sayron and the horde had indeed moved on. The Overlord seemed to have decided to walk by the shore of the ooze-sea. She caught up with him. "Shouldn't we cross it with the blues?" 

"Only when we can´t find anything else on land. It´ll exhaust them." 

"Fair enough." 

About half an hour later, the landscape returned to its familiar chaotic state. Ragged black cliffs rose up around them, and the path was blocked several times. The horde painfully worked its way through a razor-sharp maze, which reminded Jinx of the Everlightian tsingy. This appeared to be its nightmarish mirror image. 

Still, the path they were able to follow seemed to lead slowly upwards, and with some effort and – with a few Minions – foot wounds, they rose along the smooth walls. Ravines plunged down on both sides, apparently deeper than ground level. Strange sounds echoed up. Jinx shivered and hoped nothing would work its way up, or fly… 

Then they reached a point so high they could see across the rest of the dark tsingy. A faint flapping of wings resounded, but no one really registered, for they all stared at something straight in front of them. 

A floating rock. 

Not at all like the one in the Netherworld, polished and almost perfectly round; this one was a rough, glowingly overgrown chunk of rock with barely a flat top to stand on, but despite the fact it should weigh tons, it was floating in midair… and it followed a slow course across the gaping gorge in front of them. 

Jinx´ gaze wandered for a moment. Her eyes widened. "Lord…" 

Sayron followed her gaze and saw what she meant. On a spike stabbing up though the ravine, barely balanced, was a shard. "Do you think you can climb?" 

"I can try." Jinx grinned. "I´m going to need that rock." 

_"Jinxie! Careful!"  
><em> 

Kniff hadn´t spoken earlier, undoubtedly because Gnarl only tolerated him just close enough to the pool to watch. Now he had wrestled forward, and Jinx could practically see him with her eyes open. She smiled, knowing he could actually see her. "It´s alright, Kniff."  
>She took her ropes off her shoulders, braced herself and waited. She clenched her teeth.<p>

And jumped. 

The rock was at the point in its course closest to them, and with both her ropes around a tuft of glowing vegetation, what could go wrong? 

Or so Jinx thought. 

At the moment she collided with the rock and scrambled up, something tore itself from the darkness at the bottom of the ravine. Multiple somethings. 

Jinx rolled onto her back as the rock slowly drifted away from Sayron and the horde. At the same time the creatures arched through the dark sky, and dived down on two pairs of leathery wings. Against the blue glow on the horizon, Jinx saw outstretched arms, clawed feet and terrible faces, all curved horns, narrow glowing eyes and perfect, knife-sharp teeth. Faces of horrible beauty. 

_Succubi._

Back in the Tower Gnarl thought back to something he´d entrusted to Vessperion all those years back; _poor misunderstood ladies… all they want is a little bit of love. A little bit of _death…_ well, it won´t be different now._

The female demons seemed to be even more powerful than back then, in Angelis. The ooze might have given them strength, instead of deforming them. Maybe it was the fact they´d been magical to start with… 

Clawed feet were outstretched to Jinx, crouched down on the rock. Sayron stepped forward, but the chunk of rock was too far from him now. Behind him, the Minions growled. The reds threw their fireballs, but only Fever´s came close; the succubi dodged them easily. 

The first demon landed next to Jinx. Blue-black wings closed over her, like a bird of prey defending its catch. 

Almost immediately, a thud resounded, and the succubus flew up again. Jinx pulled back her sturdily booted foot and struck out with her ropes. Glowing white scratches appeared across the creature´s chest. "Don´t even think about it!" she shouted up. 

The demon snarled. Then she turned her wings and flapped across the abyss. Towards Sayron and the horde. Jinx cowered down. "Uh." 

"The shard, Jinx!" Sayron shouted. "I can handle them!" 

Jinx swept her ropes around like a fully trained Imperial slaver. The succubi visibly lost their interest and turned to their sister, soaring over the horde and crooning invitingly. A heartbeat later, Jinx was alone on the rock. She closed her eyes and tried to shut out everything happening behind her. 

_The shard, the shard…_

The rock moved – slowly, so very slowly – to the peak that bore the brightly glowing piece of nacre. As soon as she could, Jinx jumped and clawed herself in balance. The shard disappeared into the sack on her back. 

She turned. 

The succubi were hoisting Gloob, Ramul and Aches into the sky. The rest of the horde seemed hypnotized. The same went for Sayron. 

_I´m the only woman. Shit._

The Minions didn´t struggle as the succubi swept them higher into the air in a deadly embrace. Jinx looked around wildly. There were a number of peaks close to her… 

She jumped and swiped out her ropes. During the jump, she prayed not for her own safety, but for the hope there wouldn´t be any more succubi. 

The rock returned. She used it as a foothold and arrived at Sayron´s side in a slide immediately afterwards, toppling over part of the horde. Those Minions seemed to be knocked back to their senses, but in the meantime the succubi rose higher and higher…  
>A scream echoed between the gorges. One of the Minions had felt the teeth. High above her, Jinx could see one of the three victims struggling. "Gnarl!" she cried. "That´s almost a quarter of our horde! What do I do? I can´t get that high, I don´t have good weapons…!" <p>

Gnarl remained silent for frustratingly long as the Minion above them kept screaming.

Sayron shook himself awake, but now there were cries and flapping at the bottom of the gorge as well. 

Then he spoke. _"Yes, you do."_

"What?" 

_"You have the Heart! Connect the shards!"_

No time for questions. Jinx let the sack slide from her back, grabbed the two shards and pressed the fractures together. The shards didn´t fit together, but they originated from the same object and a line of light flashed between them as they connected where it was intended. This kind of touch hadn´t occurred in twenty years. The Tower Heart, seemingly powerless and broken, but still with a soul of its own, received the first message of healing.  
>The power it managed to emanate even now was enough to knock the succubi above the horde out of the sky screeching. Jinx kept pressing the shards together as tightly as she could and strained herself to follow the Minions as the demons tumbled down, all four of their wings useless in the shockwave. <p>

Aches landed on top of Stripe, hard, waking both of them up and getting Aches a slam in the face from his superior. Ramul was also freed and wildly clawed himself up along one of the peaks in the middle of the ravine. He barely made it and remained atop the spike panting, but grinning widely. Gloob, however, tumbled down with his succubus. Jinx ran to the edge and looked down furiously. "_Gloob!_" 

Her voice echoed away in the abyss. 

He was one of their most skilled fighters, she realized. And who knew how long it would take before there would be Minion gates again? She couldn´t leave him… 

"_…leader… er…_" 

A shock went through Jinx´ body. He was still alive. She aimed the light still flowing from the shards into the depths of the gorge. It briefly reflected upon something that might be a piece of armour. She put away the shards and stepped forward. 

Sayron grabbed her shoulder. Jinx shook him off. Then she saw his eyes. 

"Jinx, not for one Minion." 

"There might be shards down there," she retorted. "I just noticed these rocks can be climbed." 

Sayron sighed. "I´m going to hear that argument more often, am I?" 

Jinx looked back defiantly. 

"Well then." 

The horde leader walked to the edge, anchored one rope and let herself slide down. When she reached the end, she shook it loose and hooked her other into the wall. That way, she lowered herself deep into the darkness of the gorge. 

There was something down there. Except, probably, many more nesting succubi… 

Now that her eyes became accustomed to the dark due to her being in the middle of it, Jinx could make out a huge form on the bottom of the ravine. Perhaps something that had fallen and _made_ the ravine…? 

She could see it better now, as the glowing plants growing all over it made the shape even better visible. What _was_ that? 

It resembled Vessperion´s Tower in some way, but this one was horizontal all the way. But who else had built towers here, in times long forgotten? 

"Leader! Jinx!" 

She looked back. There, on a ridge halfway down the gorge, sat Gloob. He was grinning faintly. He wasn´t hurt too badly; his right leg seemed to be broken, but the blues wouldn't have any problems healing that. 

"Buddy," she grinned. She swung over to him and hoisted him onto her back. Then she saw the bite. 

An almost perfectly round circle of teeth marks decorated his right shoulder, and they were dripping with a translucent blue liquid. "Gloob…" 

"What?" 

He couldn´t see, she realized. The heads of Minions were proportionally too big and their shoulders too narrow to see for themselves. She shivered. "Gloob, this isn´t good."  
>But he didn´t show any signs of mutation. Whatever poison the succubus had pumped into him, it wasn´t working yet. And he wrapped his long arms around her more tightly. <p>

She had to take him up. 

"What wrong?" he asked, more concerned now. 

Jinx remained hanging there for a moment. Then she tore a piece from her shirt and tied it around his arm. "A wound that´s not looking too pretty. The blues will take care of it."  
>And who said that wasn´t true? If the wound would heal beneath the fabric, it wouldn´t matter anymore. <p>

And so Jinx climbed back up, giving in to one of her greatest weaknesses.

It had to have been at the end of that day as their problematic path led them out of the dark tsingy. Now they walked between high cliffs, but on a flat, easy path. In other places, there would be magnificent, red sunsets, but here there was just the eternal blue glow at the edges of the world. 

The peaks became lower and lower. The group ended up in a landscape of black hills. Now Sayron could see far across the land, and he didn´t like what he saw. It was depressing to be able to see this far in this dark land. 

The loose earth of the hill on their right moved slightly. 

The travellers were alert immediately. In the Tower, Gnarl shot up straight as something came to sight, and blabbered incoherently. 

And then they were everywhere. 

They were quick, so quick Sayron didn´t even recognize what they were – it took him a while even to spot the enormous, sharp-toothed mouths beneath the little beady eyes, the short arms and legs, the remains of rough clothing. Some of them had put on pots, pans or buckets as helmets, a remainder of civilization surprising him, but he did know this style from somewhere… 

"Sire… we´re in the Mellow Hills again." 

"Halflings?" the Overlord uttered. One of the creatures came jumping for him with his mouth open wide; he raised his sword and drove it deeply into its oesophagus. "Are you sure?" 

"They were dumber than sheep before the mutation, Sire." Gnarl let his eyes slide over the surroundings. "And they were breeding like rabbits even then." 

Sayron looked up. The hills around them were alive with the bizarre creatures. Some of them picked up rocks. They turned out to be skilled throwers. It was only thanks to Gloob´s skills with the mace that not one Minion was knocked unconscious, though Sayron saw he was using his left hand – wasn´t Gloob right-handed? 

"We can´t win this!" Jinx shouted from further away, her bloodied sword in one hand and two ropes in the other. Both had been wrapped around the throats of struggling halflings, and both of them still tried to run away, dragging Jinx with them. She dug her heels into the sand. "We have to try and get away!" 

The Overlord looked around again. As far as he could see, there was no end to this eruption of halflings. Running seemed like a good idea. He´d heard of an Overlord who´d been eaten by a giant weasel, but death by halflings seemed, to him, like an even more humiliating end. He nodded to Jinx hurriedly. 

The horde leader yanked her ropes free, so the two halflings spun around and fell down into the black sand. 

"Retreat!" 

At his Master´s voice, Gloob almost missed an incoming rock. All Minions turned immediately and sprinted after Sayron and Jinx, further into the hills…

And here, in the blinding colour storm of the magic room, three colours flooded together. The streaks were of a deep, dark green, intense purple and icy blue. They whirled around each other for a moment, as if they were checking each other warily. Then three figures rose up. 

Lord Atrej, Lord Vergal and Lady Synn – or their magics – looked each other in the eye for the first time in thousands of years. At this moment it didn´t matter whether they were flesh or magic; there were more pressing matters to discuss. 

Synn´s icy voice slid through the air like a knife. "My Tower has been seen." 

"And they´re marching on in the direction of mine," Atrej said in his deep voice. "Hopefully they overlook it and head for the only one still standing." He looked at Vergal. 

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Synn bit at the third Overlord. "Your Tower belongs to Lord Vessperion." 

"Vessperion refuses to show himself," the Darklord with the dragon helmet spoke. "More important at this moment is the… presence in the Bastion." 

"Light magic," Atrej nodded, seemingly unmoved. 

Synn spat. "Filthy elves! I can´t believe I never managed to kill them all off…" 

Vergal laughed. "Now I understand why you never had any heirs, Lady." 

"And you!" Synn bit. "They founded that Sanctuary just like that… and _you´re_ still alive! You should have thrown a lightning bolt at it ages ago, as Vessperion doesn´t seem to be in a condition to do something about it himself!" 

"You shall see, Lady," Vergal spoke calmly. "You shall see. The Unholy Lord has plans not even the Mother Goddess has been able to foresee." 

Synn fell silent. She knew Vergal´s bond with the Unholy ran deepest. 

"We´ll have to watch, friends." Vergal exchanged glances with the other two. "And wait." 

"And nudge them every now and then," Atrej added with an immeasurable smile. "We wouldn´t want the young Sayron to die by a halfling´s hand, now would we?" 

Synn chuckled coldly. With that sound, the three rulers faded into the colour storm.

Not far from the place where the halflings had burst from the earth, remains of houses started to appear in the dark hills; round doors, windowsills and more. It seemed like the furnishings and tools were now nothing more than primitive armour and weapons. The halflings had definitely lost whatever little intelligence they´d had. 

It was purely coincidal that Stabbit had remained standing at one of the doors and had stared inside, long enough to catch Sayron´s attention. He´d kicked down the door, and a white glow had flowed out. 

Halflings did still collect shiny things. Jinx gained one shard. The sack on her back tinkled while running. 

Then their path started going down. 

To their surprise, they seemed to be entering some kind of quarry, the sandy walls speckled with protruding pieces of black rock. The halflings behind them seemed to diminish, though one stubborn group kept running after them. One of them bolted forward and opened his gigantic, drooling mouth… 

…and abruptly yelped as an arrow pierced his skull from above, nailing his jaws together. 

Jinx looked around. Just in time to see a green-golden flash dive away. An almost shocking display of colour in this land of black and grey. 

"Where did it go?" 

The horde leader froze, then jumped forward and dragged Sayron against the wall by his arm. The Overlord struggled for a moment, but he, too, froze as he heard it. 

"…must have a base around here." 

"Think it´s the one we´re meant to be looking for?" 

"Yeah, ´cause I´d hate to think we´d stumbled upon the wrong secret base!" the first voice bit back sarcastically. 

Sayron peered around the bend in the path. Jinx tried to look around his broad chest, but the Overlord pushed her back. 

"What do you see?" she hissed, slightly offended. 

An invisible smile tugged at his mouth. "Little soldiers." 

"Many?" 

"Not really. Probably a remainder of a scouting legion. Not even a centurion." 

"Explains the conversation. At it?" 

Sayron looked at her from the side. His eyes wrinkled. Then he stepped around the corner. 

During the short, bloody fight, Jinx thought back to the green flash. Had it been an elf she´d seen jumping away? Why had he helped them…? 

But after they´d slain the soldiers and followed the path further down, her first question was answered immediately. Glowing vegetation started to appear along the sides of the path, but not the tentacly sort she was used to by now. These plants had leaves, real leaves, and they were glowing in magnificent hues of purple, gold and blue-green. Definitely elven work. Jinx started to suspect whose presence had stimulated their growth… 

Then the building came into sight. 

Sayron slowed his pace. His eyes were wide, almost as wide as those of Fever, Stabbit and Goudvis – who were looking up right next to him, grins on their faces. 

It was a ruin now, partly overgrown with the glowing elven plants, but still a recognizable building from glorious days long past. The remaining walls were smooth and perfectly crafted, and elegantly decorated with sculptures; dragons, narrow eyes, crossed blades and writhing stone flames. It was undoubtedly of the hand of Overlords. 

Gnarl held his breath. _"Lord, this is the Hive Bastion from the old days. The stories tell of the four Hives being kept here in the time of the Darklords – Vergal, Atrej and Synn. As they couldn´t keep the Hives in their Towers without breaking out into war amongst themselves because of the distribution, they protected them here, in a location in the exact middle of their Tower triangle…"_

_Stories,_ Jinx thought. _No, old man, you´ve seen it yourself. This has to be unexpected for you…_ Then she thought back to the fallen tower she´d seen in the succubi´s ravine. _A Darklord´s Tower…?_

Sayron took it in silently and slowly walked to the opened, partly collapsed gate of the Bastion. 

A green-golden flash fell out of the sky in front of him. 

Florian Greenheart stood up and wiped his blonde hair from his face. His eyes were full of barely suppressed hatred. "No time for pleasantries… not that I´d have anything pleasant to say to you." He clenched his jaws. "A large force of Empire troops is heading this way. I come on behalf of Queen Fay to offer you – against my better judgement – a truce. If you agree, follow me to her now." 

Sayron looked at him in amusement. "Well, this is a surprise. The Lady of the Light, wishing to make me her ally? And now of all times, after the recent slaughter of her own troops?"

The Minions behind him laughed raspingly. Sayron was clearly grinning in his helmet. "Well, lead me to her then, Greenheart. I´m curious as to what she thinks she has to offer me." 

Florian nodded, his face dripping with fury, and turned. Together they passed the gates of the Bastion. 

The construction´s roof had come down long ago, and the floor was littered with overgrown debris. The inner walls were almost all gone, but a second gateway had remained intact. Beyond that glowed a cool, blue-white light both Sayron and Jinx knew all too well. 

"I take no joy that our paths have crossed again, but it appears we share a common enemy – one who is as relentless as they are powerful. I speak of Solarius´ Empire." 

Fay´s musical voice engulfed the horde and its leaders like warm water. Sayron smiled almost involuntarily, despite the fact two dryads with arms full of thorns flanked the queen of light magic. She was exactly as beautiful as he remembered, and probably just as deadly if he´d decide to oppose her. He permitted her to speak on. 

"His forces are too great for either of us to fight alone…" 

In the privacy of his helmet, the Overlord could hear Gnarl suppressing his laughter. 

"…but together… we may stand a chance." 

She said it almost pleadingly. Sayron caught her eyes. He saw a woman who wanted to live, who wanted her people to survive. He didn´t know about that last bit, but she herself… she was too beautiful to be lost. This magical flower, who´d transformed his ancestors´ Hive Bastion into a glowing garden with her mere presence… she shouldn´t be lost. He nodded to her. The glow of his eyes cooled to a friendly, warm gold. 

Fay nodded back, visibly relieved. "I know what you seek in these lands. I will send my lieutenant Florian to aid you." 

Sayron looked back. Florian made a face showing all too clearly what he thought of this.

Gnarl coughed shortly. _"Help would be nice, Sire. I guess we can always kill him afterwards!"_

The Overlord grinned at Fay. "Thank you, milady. You honour me." 

"When you´ve gathered the shards, bring them to me. Florian will lead you to my Sanctuary. I will be able to restore the object." 

Sayron bowed a last time. As he straightened out, Fay was gone and he had to shield his eyes from a blue flame. 

He turned to Florian. And grinned. 

The elf found himself surrounded by more bared teeth. Sharp, irregular teeth, and in one case, those of a human girl. Jinx resembled a Minion more than ever as she smiled at their unwilling elven guide. 

In one jump, he was atop a wall. "Follow me," he bit at the group. 

And so they left the Hive Bastion, back into the Wasteland, with a new course… and new hope of succeeding.

Much further to the west, in a land beneath a blue sky now blushing pink in the evening light, two enormous wooden doors were being pushed open. The wood bore the gilded lion´s head of Emperor Solarius, and the slaves pushing them open hadn´t gotten their bulging biceps for nothing. 

Two men walked in through the doors, into a marble hall full of mosaics and statues. They were both dressed like centurions, but their red cloaks were tattered and torn. Their breastplates were rusty from the sweat and blood that had flowed over them. Beneath their arms they did carry new helmets, but one would suspect this was because their old ones had been topped with half scorched plumes, or dented beyond repair. 

The doors to the Emperor´s throne room swung open for them. 

Immediately, the two bowed to the floor, not daring to look up and meet the Emperor´s eyes. "Imperator," one hurried himself to say, "we´ve come to bring you report of the takeover of the city of Ignavopolis on Everlight –" 

"Spare yourself the effort," a voice interrupted him. It wasn´t the Emperor´s. The supreme ruler of the Glorious Empire never spoke, after all, to civilians nor commanders. 

The two looked up. Their eyes widened slightly as they saw the throne before them, surrounded by gilded grapevines and palm leaves, was as empty as their stomachs felt thanks to the news they had come to bring. There were two figures on both sides of the seat of power, however. 

"Lord Marius…" The two bowed again, not as deep and much shorter. "We bring bad news. The civilians of Ignavopolis have been brought under the command of dark magic and have become trained soldiers of the Demon Lord. To our shame, Lord, our troops didn´t stand a chance against the demons and our former compatriots. Half of our ships have been sunk." 

"This is severe," the Speaker nodded. "I shall pass this on to the Emperor." His eyes narrowed. "You will receive a message of his words on this. Permission to leave." 

The two hurriedly bowed a third time, turned and stiffly marched off the way they´d come. As the great doors had closed once more, Marius turned to the second figure standing next to the throne; a hooded woman. She nodded. 

"Let´s hope he´s finished his business quickly. We need him."

**Maraxus: I see…**

**Gnarl: The dream?**

**Maraxus: It was a civil war. Minions against Minions. Those loyal to Jinx versus Sayron's. And the two cousins were at it. What does this mean?**

**Gnarl: No-one knows what the Unholy Lord has planned. But it seems the Tower Heart is needed, so we've got an elf helping us.**

**Maraxus scoffs: So Fay wants to form an alliance to save her people. I say we let them help us, then I swarm their sanctuary and put every last one of them to the sword.**

**Gnarl: Until the Overlord says you can then hold your place here. Now, tell me what you think of the mutated succubi?**

**Maraxus: Dang they're awesome, dangerous but beautiful. Anyway you readers review this… or you're going to the Wasteland with no Blues. Anonymous reviews are accepted.**


	25. Ancient power, new purpose

**General: Man it is good to be back**

**Jinx: Where have you been? All these loyal readers have been left hanging**

**General: Calm yourself my dear, I was hoping to get some reviews but it appears this people didn't review at all. I told them the less reviews the longer it would be till I updated**

**Jinx: Just do the disclaimer already**

**General: I do not own this story or the characters, all credit goes to Sunjinjo on deviantart**

**Ancient power, new purpose**

"Follow me, Scourge of Nature!"

Sayron sighed as he painfully scaled a slide of rubble. As he arrived at the top, the elf was gone already. 

Traveling with Florian Greenheart wasn´t as easy as he´d thought. The elf was quick as lightning, and though the Overlord would have easily been able to beat him in battle, it was deadly tiring to follow him constantly. 

A day had passed since they´d left the Hive Bastion. They´d spent a night in the elf´s company, who´d been staring at them suspiciously until they´d fallen asleep. After that, he´d probably been staring at the nightshifts one by one. The next day, Florian's mood betrayed he´d gotten little sleep. 

Of course, the downsides of traveling with an elf were topped by the area itself. There was even more ooze than they´d run into before, and there were moments the blues had to show their talent every few steps – something which drained them, too. Jinx cared for the six healers every now and then, and she´d noticed the contact with the sick magic gave them stinging headaches. Soaker kept tough, but as he did most of the work, he was weakened the most as well. The only one seemingly not affected at all was Goudvis – the Minion with the black-lined eyes. This surprised Jinx less than it should have. At times she´d stare at him as he jumped for a new ooze pool, far more cheerfully than the rest of his clan. Sometimes he´d look back, with eyes saying ´_What am I doing wrong?_´ 

In the black skies above, even blacker birds with tattered wings soared overhead. No one was looking forward to the moment when those would take an interest in them. Gnarl told them stories about the Ruborian vultures that made even Sayron hope furiously these weren´t their mutated offspring. 

Around midday, the Overlord raised his gaze from the crumbling, cracked ground. His eyes fell upon a light shining up to the black clouds from between the clawed rocks in front of them. It was of a stinging cyan, and he knew what caused it. He´d also seen it shining up from the ooze sea, a few days earlier. 

"Where are you leading us, elf?" he spoke, wearily. 

Florian jumped atop a tall rock and looked back. "A place where I know a few shards to be." 

"How long have you been here?" asked Miko, a blue Minion who´d been chosen by Soaker and Zap as one of the first. He didn´t talk much and was so disciplined Jinx was convinced he´d been a general of sorts in a past life. 

The elf looked at them with sharp eyes. "Longer than I ever wanted," he said, bitterness in his voice. Then he flashed forward, in the direction of the blue light. 

The light turned out to be rising from some sort of bowl between jagged mountainsides, that would need climbing first. This was quite a challenge for the Overlord and his followers; even apart from the steep, crumbling slopes, there were multiple flows of ooze coming down, testing the blues even further. The blue clan had never been the strongest of the four, and the six were slowly beginning to get exhausted – save for Goudvis. Then Jinx, Stripe and Aches, the strongest browns now Gloob seemed to weaken further and further, took them on their backs in turns. 

Jinx looked back in worry. She now started doubting her decision to hide Gloob´s injury – the succubus´ bite seemed to tighten its grip with every passing hour. 

Then, surprisingly abrupt, Sayron reached the top of the mountainside and joined Florian, crouched atop a boulder at the top of the slope. The horde spread out around them and they stared down. 

A blinding blue plain of ooze, caught between the mountainsides. It´d been the perfect place to build a Tower, but instead, it´d just become a lake of twisted magic. Sayron turned to Florian, and his eyes flared weakly. "_This_ is the place you think to find shards? Look at my blues! They´re exhausted!" 

Soaker came forward, shambling slightly. "It´s alright," he spoke, his breathlessness hidden well. "We´ll be okay, Master." He didn´t pay heed as Stabbit launched himself off the mountain cheering and giggling, straight for the ooze, and he didn´t react either as Goudvis ran after him tirelessly to prevent him from slamming into the poisonous lake. Sayron didn´t seem to find it odd either. The unusual behaviour of the Minions with the strange eyes had slowly become normal among the hordes. Fever did look at them shaking his head wearily, peering between his fingers and tightly closing his eyes as the two bounced to the ground, Goudvis keeping ahead of Stabbit so the insane green Minion landed on rock instead of ooze. The duo was behaving like happy toddlers… 

Then suddenly they came sprinting back. Sayron narrowed his eyes; it seemed as if a bulbous piece of ooze had come loose. "Slugs," he said, suddenly alert. "Follow me! We´ll lose them if we aren´t quick!" 

Faster than they´d liked, the rest of the horde descended the mountain, some of them swearing at Goudvis and Stabbit. Tripping, and in some cases barely avoiding small puddles of ooze, they ran down and waited at the edge of the ooze lake until Jinx, Stripe and Aches with the blues on their backs had caught up with them and the blue horde was complete – save for Goudvis, who came running for them with Stabbit in hot pursuit, and the slugs behind him. 

Florian had jumped for a jutting rock above the ooze lake and was now hatefully looking down on both the slugs and the Overlord with his horde. 

"Squash them! I mean, usher them gently to the next world. Come on, we all know how good you are at destroying things!" 

Sayron kept his dignity and didn´t look up as he went for the slugs in an ooze-free arena, kept intact by the blues. What kind of elf was Florian, anyway? He seemed to be far more vicious than his tree-hugging kin. 

The greens were exceptionally useful in this fight. Their strong legs made them capable of jumping almost as high and far as the elf, and when they were atop a slug, it was a matter of slicing through the rubbery skin and jumping back with dripping claw knives, or further to a next victim. Jagged was jumping from slug to slug as if they were trampolines, along a path taking him deep into the lake. The green horde leader eventually came back across the corpses and put his claws to solid ground again. There, he could immediately grab Stabbit´s wrist as he was about to lick his knives as he always did. "Stabbit," he spoke in warning. "Wouldn´t." His horde member yelped briefly and then let his knives hang limply. 

"Scout the lake," Florian´s voice resounded from the tall rock. "I´m sure there are shards below the ooze here." 

Sayron nodded grumpily, offended by the command. 

What followed was an exhausting search across the lake. The blues were at the front, slowly and carefully in a wide group to cover as much terrain as was possible. The greens directly followed, ready to jump over them to possible enemies. The reds had stayed behind and now circled the mountainsides to search for a pearly light amidst the blinding cyan from above. 

Jinx and the browns were also keeping an eye out for possible enemies. Or rather, Aches was – Jinx and Stripe were mostly keeping an eye on Gloob, who still managed to put one foot in front of the other, but was doing so in an increasingly drunk manner. After some time, Jinx couldn´t bear Stripe´s eyes piercing the back of her head as she waited for Gloob to catch up with them anymore. She looked into the fiery orange eyes of the only Minion whose commands she´d really consider, and sighed. "Yeah, okay. He´s been bitten," she admitted in a low voice. "Apparently the wound hasn´t healed as the blues took care of him. But what was I to do? He looked fine back in the gorge." 

Stripe looked at her sternly. Then he lowered his eyes and sighed as well. "Good horde member," he said in his deep, growling voice. "Old friend. Take him on your back." 

Jinx did as he said. Stripe reached up as he walked, and pulled down the piece of fabric around Gloob´s shoulder. He hissed. 

Jinx looked back. The wound was swollen and seemed to be glowing slightly. The flesh around it was tainted darkly. Gloob´s eyes had almost closed now he didn´t have to walk anymore. "He´s going to mutate, isn´t he?" Jinx said softly. 

Stripe nodded. No ´maybe´, no ´probably´. He was sure of it. But he didn´t advise her to lower him and leave him behind. That´s what Aches would have done; the Minion who didn´t care about weaklings and newborns, or old friends. The Minion with the black-plumed helmet, walking just behind the rest, and not at the back where the ooze was almost catching up with them. He didn´t even look back. 

Jinx was so consumed by worried thoughts she barely noticed as the blues stopped, and with them, everyone walking behind. She looked up, and saw the three pinpricks of light of Hoarse, Fever and Simmer, way up ahead on the mountainside. Then she looked down. The Minions were moving aside to clear a path for her. The blues had finally found a shard at the bottom of the lake. 

She hurried forward and picked it up with trembling fingers. As she let it slide into the sack, past Gloob´s weakening claws, she felt bitterness well up inside of her like bile. _Minions are going to die here._ She didn´t doubt it anymore. Her only comfort was the fact Kniff was safe. _They´re going to die, my old friends… and all for a few pieces of powerless nacre._ Inside she was yelling and cursing at the shards on her back, and she almost wished they hadn´t helped her chase off the succubi with their blinding power – she wished they actually were powerless, so she had the right to be furious at them, to fling them away, to break off the expedition. She wanted to get _out_ of here. She wanted to get back to the real world, to sunlight and life, and real fights against enemies she could look in the eye and defeat, instead of foes who were all around her all the time and slowly drained the life from her and her friends. 

She walked along as the blues started moving again, without a word. Sayron looked back once, and he almost jolted as he saw his horde leader´s eyes; the dark rings around them had been there for a few days, but her eyes were now almost blazing from within her lowered face. He was secretly glad she wasn´t looking at him. 

_She cares too much about the Minions,_ he realized. A moment later, a second thought followed. _But isn´t that the definition of a good horde leader?_

A while later, the Overlord was jolted again as Floater and Drip, two younger blues, burst out coughing in front of him and backed away. Sayron backed away with them, for a place where the blues weren´t standing wasn´t a safe one out here. "What´s wrong?" he asked. "What´s bothering you?" 

"Stench," Drip coughed, wiping tears from his large eyes. "I couldn´t breathe…" 

Soaker carefully crept forward to the spot where the two had been struck. He, too, backed away, his eyes narrow. "Master," he said, looking up. "There´s something here, beneath the ooze. Guys, come over here, surround it." 

As the blues had carefully divided themselves around the spot where the foul air seemed to be coming from, the ooze suddenly gurgled, and the area within their circle burst open in a rain of droplets. Everyone backed away. But the middle of the ring remained ooze-free. A dark hole had been brought to light. 

Jinx jolted as Florian suddenly jumped down beside her. The elf didn´t so much as look at her, but walked over to the hole and peered down, holding his nose. Jinx, too, came forward and carefully smelled the air. Now the ooze bubble was gone, the air seemed to be slightly better. It was now possible to breathe even if you weren´t a green Minion. 

Florian was still holding his nose. "I feel the presence of shards," he uttered in a distorted voice. "Multiple, even." 

Sayron strode forward and towered over him, more fearsome than ever. "How do we know you´re not luring us to our death?" he thundered. "You might have been right about one little shard in this lake, but I refuse to enter this hole because you say so, elf!" 

Florian seemed unimpressed. "Then you don´t. But you´ll never complete your Tower Heart." A trace of a smile seemed to linger around his mouth. 

Jinx stepped forward. "I can try and create a shield, Lord. Give me Jagged and Ramul in case there´s still poison down there." 

"Jinx…" the Overlord started, turning around wearily. He was greeted by bright, but deadly grey eyes. 

"I´ll survive anything, Lord." It wasn´t an argument. It was a fact in the way she said it. She tried to ignore the image of Kniff, furiously wrestling to get to the mist pool to desperately tell her not to go. 

She even briefly hoped Sayron would forbid her. It came as a slight shock when he nodded.  
>She briefly widened her eyes, then nodded back and gestured to the two greens. They came standing next to her, followed by two blues as Sayron told them to. Jinx concentrated, and slowly a translucent purple bubble grew around her, reminiscent of the delicate nets of blue lightning Sayron had woven at the right moments. <p>

Then, with her eyes closed tightly and under a quick prayer, she stepped into the hole.

In the magic room something groaned in a deep voice. By the sound of it, something else was busy making fun of him in a sharp, tinkling laugh. 

"I knew it," Lady Synn chuckled. "I knew they´d find your Tower as well." 

Lord Atrej pressed the palm of his gauntleted hand to his face. "Alright, alright. Let´s hope there actually are shards down there and that stupid elf hasn´t sent them down for nothing." 

"Don´t you know?" 

"How should I know? There´s so much magic in there." 

Synn thought this over, then raised her head. Naturally, there was a third figure, very still this time and facing away from them, slightly further into the colour storm. 

"Are you alright, Vergal?" 

"Hm?" The third Darklord half turned, then back again. "Oh, yes…" 

"Thinking of squashing that Sanctuary?" 

Vergal smiled faintly, invisible to Atrej and Synn. "I never was as violent as you, Synn. No, I´m thinking about the state of our young horde leader." 

"She´s going to survive it, right? I´m starting to like her," Synn spoke, slightly worried. "She kind of reminds me of myself." 

"That, milady, only Taegan knows."

Slow blue waterfalls, in a slight purple hue thanks to the shield, enclosed her on all sides.  
>Jinx now knew how a non-blue Minion felt while surrounded by water. Jagged and Ramul looked around them in slight panic as the purple bubble slowly descended in the hole. Floater and Drip, the two blues, seemed slightly more at ease. <p>

"_Always_ stay in the shield, with me," Jinx said with pressure. 

"Know, Jinx," Ramul hissed. "Aren´t going anywhere." 

Jagged chuckled for a moment, a sound breaking the mood slightly. "Like little slaves in walking wheel," he snickered. 

"Right, and we should stay that way. We walk and roll the bubble forward, alright? I think I can manage." 

Caves stretched away into an endless deep far below them. Jinx looked up; she did see the sky, but it was black and offered little hope. She noticed she didn´t even really want to go back up. She let the bubble descend further. 

Eventually, they reached a point where a jutting rock split the ooze flow, so they could see the wall behind it. There was a cave there. Jinx reasoned, however, that if there were shards here, they´d have fallen down and wouldn´t have ended up in a side tunnel. They lowered themselves further, past more and more caves in the walls. What kind of place was this? There was an air of immense age here, an air that made her feel like these caves had been populated once. She knew this feeling. She´d had it as she´d stared down on the fallen tower in the succubus ravine. 

But… 

…she suddenly remembered something she´d read in a scroll in the private quarters, seemingly ages ago, back in the comfortable safety of the Netherworld. 

The locations of the Darklords´ Towers had never been clarified, because the rulers had kept them a secret after their fall. But they seemed to lie in a triangle in this area, something she knew because Gnarl had betrayed it to them at the Hive Bastion. 

The Towers of Synn and Vergal had stood upright. One of those seemed to have fallen. But Atrej´s had been subterraneous. It had been different from Sayron´s in the Netherworld, however; Atrej´s Tower had been an unbelievably complicated cave system reaching at least as deep as the other Towers were tall. 

Could this be Atrej´s Tower? Filled up with ooze, insanely dangerous, impossible to search? 

"Boys," Jinx muttered to the four Minions, "this is not going to be easy…"

At the surface, Sayron looked up at Florian, already nestling himself on top of one of the many rock formations in the lake. "You get comfortable up there," he called up. "Just let us wait here until they come back." 

"I never said you couldn´t just continue," Florian answered innocently. 

It didn´t take much more for Sayron to fly up the rocks and fling the elf into the ooze by his throat. He kept himself in check thinking of Fay and her opinion of him when he would. 

The remaining blues had sat down with crossed legs, keeping the ooze away as much as they could. The rest of the horde stood or sat between them uncomfortably. They weren´t used to waiting. Most of them stayed well away from Stripe and Gloob – mainly Aches was at the very other end of the group. 

The former horde leader was sitting with crossed legs like the blues, Gloob only half consciously on his lap. This was an unusual display of care from the rough, large Minion, and most others were looking at him in surprise. Soaker, however, was holding Gloob´s injured arm, even if he was keeping the ooze away at the same time, and concentrated to set the healing process in motion. The wound did seem to be less swollen, and the dark taint was shrinking, but it was happening painfully slow and Soaker´s face was twisted with the combined strain. Stripe watched in worry. But he had hope for the Minion just below him in rank, one he´d known for much of his life. He had hope his old friend might still heal.

In the Netherworld was someone who was possibly holding on to his hope even tighter. Jinx´ mental image had been right – in the moment she´d stepped into Atrej´s cave system, Kniff had pretty much fought as if his life depended on it. But Gnarl had called down two of the guards watching the portal to keep away unwanted guests, and those two sturdy, armoured Minions with Netherworldly helmets now firmly held the little, trembling brown by his arms, slightly lifting him off the ground. 

"Change the pool," Kniff begged the ancient Minion. "Show her." 

"I can´t do that myself," Gnarl bit at him. "It´s always happened outside my power, alright? And this seemingly isn´t that kind of moment where the pool thinks it´s a good idea to show her." As he said this, a surge of discomfort flowed through his stomach, and he could see the double applied to Kniff. He looked into the brown´s desperate eyes and almost felt sorry for him. "I know she isn´t dead," he said with an irritated sigh. "Come on, this is Jinx. You know very well she´s been stabbed, drowned, poisoned and eaten without dying. She´ll survive this, too."

The purple bubble slowly descended onto the bottom. Some sort of bottom, anyway.  
>The shield sunk down into ooze up to Jinx´ eye height almost immediately, and then calmly continued sinking. Jinx screamed in shocked fear, and the greens hissed in sudden panic. The blues, who´d outstretched their hands to the shield earlier to strengthen it with their own magic, now doubled their efforts. <p>

Jinx stared around her. The ooze shone blindingly bright, in irregular, viscous streams. It steadily crept up along the shield. "Walk," she uttered. "Roll the shield somewhere, doesn´t matter where." She tried her best to lift the shield slightly, but she knew rolling was a better method if there was solid ground somewhere near. She looked up. The glowing blue shaft stretched up to the sky, and the waterfalls continued all the way down into the lake in which they were stuck now. However, if there was an entrance somewhere behind the waterfalls, an entrance with less ooze behind it… 

With combined efforts they managed to set the shield in motion, and the bubble slowly ploughed through the sick magic and towards the wall of slowly descending ooze. The blues managed to clear away the ooze above it and pile it up below it, so they rose slowly. They reached the waterfall and pushed through. Behind it lay only dark rock, but Jinx rolled the bubble along it in the hopes of finding an entrance. 

Then, suddenly, they were through and burst into a new area. They rolled through a puddle of ooze, but it quickly grew shallower and then ended. Solid ground! 

Jinx was so relieved she forgot to hold on to the bubble, and the shield burst without sound. She and the four Minions fell down onto the rock bottom. 

Immediately Jinx and the blues pressed their hands to their faces and burst into a wheezing cough. 

In the poisonous light of the ooze behind them they could – with tear-filled eyes – see a tunnel stretching away into the darkness. The system had become horizontal, they´d reached the deepest part. 

Darkness wasn´t the only thing hindering their sight. 

The tunnel was completely overgrown with leathery leaves and trumpet-shaped flowers resembling those growing at the green Hive, apparently kept alive in the blue light. From their calyxes they seemed to emanate a greenish mist, and the air certainly wasn´t fresh here – Jinx, Floater and Drip tried to breathe, but didn´t manage to do so. Ramul and Jagged didn´t seem to be affected. 

"Help," Floater panted, his hands at his throat and despair in his round eyes. 

Ramul gripped Jagged´s shoulder. The green leader nodded. Then the two sped away through the tunnel. 

Jinx looked on as they jumped for the growths. Where they went the greenish mist seemed to thin and disappear, and the flowers slowly closed; a talent of the greens that had been long hidden. 

A rustling echoed towards them from the dark, outside the glow of the ooze. The greens froze and abruptly stopped trying to close the flowers on the walls. They silently slid away into invisibility. 

Jinx pulled her bandana from her head and covered her nose and mouth with it. Then she unsheathed her sword and stood in front of the blues in defence. "If you want to you can wait in the pool," she spoke in a muffled voice. 

"No, we´d rather stay here," Drip answered, softly but grimly. "You could just be needing us." 

Jinx nodded silently and stepped forward, as the green mist backed away for her; the greens were still at work. Not much later Jinx smelled only their odour, an indication of their positions. She used the same perception as the clan itself to avoid bumping into them as long as they were still invisible. 

For some time they walked on without trouble. Jinx felt naked in a strange way; as far as she could see, she was accompanied by only two Minions, and those were blues to top it off – not capable of really fighting, and if both were killed, they´d be useless. The upper world was unreachable behind more ooze than she´d ever wanted. The one thing she did have was the word of an elf there were shards down here. 

Then she was forced to let go of those thoughts. The walls were coming to life. 

The rustling they´d heard earlier started again, and then changed into the buzz of dozens of membranous wings beneath gleaming shields. 

"Jagged! Ramul!" Jinx shouted. A moment later she was smothered by multiple gigantic beetles. 

They were of a gleaming, oily green, and their hind wings gave them a wingspan of at least a meter. They weren´t heavy, but the impact of four of them knocking into Jinx at the same time was enough to throw her into the ground, between the poison flowers. A few of them opened again as she flattened them. Her eyes filled with tears, but her improvised gas mask served her well. 

With a crack and a small rain of colourless smudge she skewered one of the beetles, but the six clawed legs kept milling about and scratched her breastplate, making it harder to yank the insect off. Jinx was forced to leap up, swing her sword down and crush the insect´s head with a fierce kick. The wings shivered a last time, then the beetle stopped moving. 

It didn't end the stream of its kin.

At the surface, boredom had taken over. Sayron was sitting in the middle of the ooze-free zone, sharpening his blade, and angrily looked up at Florian time and again. The elf was sitting atop the rock, calmer than ever, staring up at the sky as if he didn´t have a care in the world. 

Meanwhile, the four blues were frowning with strain. Soaker was still busy tending to Gloob at the same time, but the brown Minion was still unconscious. It seemed as if the blue was temporarily halting the poison, not eliminating it. 

Stripe had given up sitting by his friend´s side and worrying a while ago. Now he was prying small pieces of rock from the crumbling soil and lobbing them further and further into the ooze. 

Invisible to his eyes, the result was a surge of slow, viscous waves through the blue plain.

And below the surface, something stirred.

"Yah!" 

A small dagger pierced one of the membranous wings of the last beetle. The insect lost its balance, and then was clawed from the air by Jagged. The green winked. "Thank, Drip." 

The blue came forward across the poison growths and plucked his modest weapon from the insect. He grinned back. "No thanks." 

Jinx sighed deeply and yanked a severed head from her leg – the jaws had been stronger than she´d estimated. She scanned the tunnel. 

There were dead beetles everywhere. Some of them were still convulsing, but she knew none of them would fly again. 

All four of the Minions were still alive. Drip and Floater had kept to the back, constantly surrounded by whirls of blue, healing sparks in case they´d get hurt. The greens had used their invisibility to the advantage, and the fight had swung round in their favour. 

"Thanks, guys." 

Jagged grinned up at Jinx. "Our area," he hissed. "Can´t be harmed when we´re around." 

"Don´t get overconfident," the horde leader warned, but the green leader was already strolling on. The flowers closed before him, though not many remained here; they were leaving the glow of the ooze behind, and without light not even these growths could survive. The group entered total darkness. Jinx snapped her fingers and a purple flame nestled into the palm of her hand. 

The tunnel split a couple of times, but also joined together with another. Entrances came out on their passage from above, but none of them brought ooze with it; all entrances from the upper world appeared to be closed off, except the one they´d entered. 

Jinx tried to understand. What was this place? Was this really Atrej´s Tower? An Overlord couldn´t possibly live in here… 

Then the creaking of rock on rock resounded, and her flame suddenly paled in a pearly glow. In this new light Jinx could see Jagged lifting a small boulder and rolling it away. Below it lay a shard, and the light it emanated lit up the surroundings. They´d entered a larger cave without even noticing. The ceiling flew up into the high distance, where flickering shadows moved in the shard´s light. 

Jinx picked up the shard, but didn´t put it away. It might be better to save her magic and use this light instead… 

One of the shadows fluttered down on leathery wings. 

Jinx raised her sword, but the creature sailed over her and the Minions without doing any harm. She caught a glimpse of a hairy black body, glowing blue eyes and sharp, regular teeth. A bat. A mutated one, but the creature appeared to be far more stable than the other inhabitants of the Wasteland. 

Before she knew it, the horde leader was grinning. The memory of Ripped Wing was irresistible. 

More bats joined the first in a whirl of hairy shadows, and the shard´s light shone up all the way to the ceiling. There, at the cave´s most distant wall, was a hole which continued far into the ceiling. Jinx strained her eyes – was that what she thought it was? 

It was a winding stairs… 

She hurriedly walked over, followed by the Minions. A trace of civilization? 

Indeed, there was a stairs leading up along the cave wall, up to the point where it disappeared into the ceiling. Along the wall, weathered images were visible, but they were too faint to properly make out. 

And here… 

Jinx stroked over the rough rock – or at least she thought so. Her fingers traced a deeply carved line, arching over her head height. She brought her hand down. Ancient dust descended. 

"I´m getting too old for this," Jinx mumbled, as her index finger traced the cleared inscription and she tried to make out the words. "The other two can keep this up until they die. I hereby close my domain and hope it will stay hidden until the Unholy wishes to uncover it again. May evil always find a way. Lord Atrej, ruler over the Golden Mountains, western Ruboria and Tusay-Marena." 

Jinx took a deep, trembling breath. This meant two things. She´s just found the final message of a legendary Overlord to the world, and Atrej´s domain reached far deeper than just these caves and passages – this was just his first hallway, his protection from the upper world. She silently thanked him in something resembling a prayer for the fact he´d done so. They probably wouldn´t have survived the search through the actual domain. 

She vowed to herself to return here someday, and open this gate. 

She looked around her. The cave was a dead end; there was only one entrance. They´d have to return the way they´d come.

The ooze stirred. 

Stripe jumped up and stared down with wide orange eyes, his last pebble still in his claw. The viscous blue fluid had flowed towards him a few centimetres, like waves on a beach. 

The former horde leader looked out across the glowing blue plain. 

Under his eyes, the ooze bubbled up. Now Sayron and the others were on their guard as well, and in certain points the ooze flowed in again because the blues lost their concentration. 

The bubbles appeared in multiple spots, the large brown Minion noticed. Threes of feelers appeared, with slow, slimy movements. 

Slugs. Slugs, larger than he´d ever seen them in the days he´d spent here. More as well. He must have woken them up with his throwing. 

They slowly started to come for the group. Sayron had already seen them, but refrained from punishing the large brown Minion – he had more pressing matters to deal with. 

"Soaker, Eel, Goudvis, hold that magic! We need that solid ground!" The Overlord looked down. There, just next to him, was a drooling, grinning Minion with a giggle at the back of his throat. 

"Stabbit… you´re the only green here. Jump them." There was no sign of understanding or confirmation from the insane Minion, but it would have to be enough. Granting permission was optional with Stabbit; he went for it either way if there was something in sight he could kill. 

"Miko!" The blue Minion looked up. Sayron looked back with hard, flaming eyes. "Get the reds." 

The blue saluted and ran off to the edge of the lake. 

Sayron turned back to the approaching slugs – fast, fear-inducingly fast and impossible to ward off – and unsheathed his sword. Florian lazily climbed off his rock formation. "We can take them." 

"We can´t all fit on that rock of yours if there are too many and the blues fall," Sayron growled. "We have to stand our ground. Jinx and a quarter of our horde are down there in that hole."

"Drip, Floater… um." 

The two blue Minions turned to Jinx. To her, they were silhouettes against a wall of poisonous, cyan light – they´d returned to the waterfall of ooze behind which lay the shaft leading up to the lake. 

"Yes, Jinx?" 

"Would you dive into the lake? That one shard might have been washed into the tunnel, or taken by a beetle or something else, but it could just be one is still in the ooze itself." 

Drip nodded immediately, almost eagerly. "Certainly!" He dove through the ooze face-first, followed by Floater moments later. 

The ooze closed behind them, and the horde leader was alone with Jagged and Ramul. She sank down and crossed her legs. "We´ve come a long way," she sighed. "Below the Wasteland, pff…" 

"Seems years ago we guided you to Master on Everlight," Jagged grinned. 

"I remember that," Jinx smiled. "You kept going invisible. It was hell to follow you." 

"Are going back, right?" Jagged´s eyes glowed hopefully in the cyan light. "Miss Everlight." 

Jinx laughed briefly. "As do I. It´s the best I can imagine right now, even better than the Netherworld… sunlight, sea, palm trees…" 

"Spiders," Ramul spoke up. 

"If we get back," Jinx started, "I´ll take you to the temple lake, and we´ll take your little ones as well, Ramul. They should see where their parents were brought up." 

The two sly faces brightened. Before either of them could say something, however, the waterfall split again and they had to back away, because the two blues came through and they brought a great splashing of ooze. As they´d shaken themselves clean Jinx and the greens came closer again. Drip had his hands hidden behind his back and was grinning broadly. Jinx widened her eyes. "There actually was one?" 

The blue took out the shard. "Very correct." 

"Thanks! You guys are great," the horde leader grinned.

At the surface the slugs had reached the patch of dry ground on which the horde was standing. Sayron tried to defend the edges of the area as well as he could, but the slugs were too many. The blues were forced to retreat further and further, even though the Overlord let loose as much lightning as he could and Stabbit was jumping from slug to slug, leaving none alive. Even Florian plunged his slender sword into the slimy blue bodies, but the slugs had noticed there was food here, and so much better food than they were used to. They were driven further towards the rock formation, and Sayron saw they´d be forced to give up the hole Jinx had disappeared into. But if they did so, the ooze would flow back in.

He couldn´t allow that. 

He looked back and realized he was only one step away from the hole. He took that step and bent over. 

"Jinx!" he roared down. "If you can hear me, come up as fast as you can! The hole´s going to flood and I can´t hold it much longer!"

Floater froze mid-sentence, and perked his ear webs. "I hear something…" He stuck his head through the ooze fall. As he pulled back, he was slightly paler. "Jinx, we have to get back up. Master´s doing battle and he has to give up the hole." 

Jinx clenched her teeth. "So much for our scouting mission. Come over here, guys." She concentrated and formed a jolting shield, stronger and rounder with every passing second. "Ready?" 

The Minions nodded. Jinx nodded back and stepped forward, rolling the bubble through the ooze fall doing so. 

"I need you," she spoke between her teeth as the shield sank into the ooze for a second time. "Drip, Floater, help me up." 

The two blues outstretched their hands and their magic to the slime above them and pushed it down, so the bubble slowly rose. As they were out of the pool they continued with the ooze on the walls. 

"I have to give up, Jinx!" Sayron´s voice suddenly echoed through the shaft. Jinx jolted and almost let go of the shield. She looked up. 

There, through a purple haze, she saw something appear in the gap connecting her to the outer world. And it wasn´t the Overlord. 

A hideous head with three stalked, glowing eyes, dripping with ooze. A slug, and a large one.  
>Sayron was gone from there. The blues were gone from there. <p>

An enormous clump of ooze came with the slug and hit the shield squarely, with a dull thud. 

Jinx lost her concentration. 

The purple, protecting bubble flickered and disappeared. She and the Minions immediately fell down through the middle of the shaft. 

But Jinx had experience with falling; she´d survived multiple lethal situations, and now, too, she instantly had a rope in one hand and wildly grabbed at the Minions with the other. She brushed Floater, but didn´t manage to hold on to him. At that moment her rope hooked on through the ooze, to the rock beneath it, and she stopped falling. She could just create a new shield before smacking against the wall of ooze. 

There she hung, by one rope, only a thin layer of magic protecting her from the ooze now running down the walls faster and faster. 

Ramul had grasped her leg at the very last moment. The other three… 

Jinx took a shivering breath. The other three had fallen. There was nothing she could have done. 

"Jagged! Drip! Floater!" She almost yelped out their names. 

"We´re okay!" Floater´s voice echoed up. "Drip, let go of my ears, will you…" 

Jinx shivered across her entire body. Ramul climbed up to her back and stared down. He resembled a frightened cat. 

"…Jagged?" 

Silence. 

"_Jagged!_" 

From the terrible silence rose a slow, rattling growl. 

Jinx shut her eyes tightly. "No… no…" 

Below them, two lights blinked on. Blue. Mismatched in size. 

Then a dark shade flashed up and threw itself onto the hanging horde leader. Jinx caught a glimpse of huge, jagged tusks jabbing up from a deformed lower jaw below two hideous, blinding eyes, then the thing bounced off the shield and fell back into the shaft, growling the entire way. Jinx was almost sobbing with misery, but still thought of the blues. "Guys! I´m coming down!" 

"No, Jinx! We´ll be alright! We´ll stay here!" The grief was clearly audible in Drip´s voice, and it was clear he meant Jinx should finish the job before they could come up. Jinx furiously wiped her tears away with her free hand and then climbed up, as Jagged was audibly coming closer through the shaft. 

Before they were out, the enormous clawed thing that´d once been a Minion caught up with them a second time. This time he didn´t bounce off the shield, but hung on to the opposite wall, where the ooze slowly dripped over him and rendered him even more fearsome; all spines and claws and teeth, all of which having grown so fast the flesh around them was split and torn and now leaked a mixture of red and blue blood. But just like Parch, Jagged could feel no pain. He didn´t feel anything – just the urge to kill whatever he saw. What was left of Jagged was now more insane than Stabbit. 

Jinx kept climbing and eventually hoisted the shield over the edge, into the ooze lake. She quickly looked around and saw Sayron and the horde had pulled back, partly up the high rock, partly around it on soil kept free by the blues. They were fighting back a large group of slugs, and many more lay dead around the hole. She could see Sayron had done good to pull back and give up the hole; it had been impossible to keep the blues in position. 

She quickly rolled the shield over to them and let go. It was more important to stay on solid ground and save her strength now. Ramul slid off her shoulders. 

Sayron ended the fight with his slug and saw her hunted expression. "What happened in there?" 

"Jagged," she panted. "He´s mutated." She didn´t even think of the two shards they´d acquired; the tears now ran across her cheeks freely and blurred her vision. She did see the enormous mutated Minion climbing out of the hole and storming at them through the ooze, with more than just the speed of a green Minion. 

She shook off a shiver and drew her sword, meaning for Jagged to run into it. He didn´t; the Minion evaded her and turned invisible. 

Jinx widened her eyes. "No…" 

Then a green flash darted past her, and not mingled with glowing blue, like Jagged´s skin. There, hissing, rolling through the ooze clawing at an invisible opponent, was Stabbit. The insane Minion was visibly getting more and more bloody scratches, seemingly from empty air. The ooze covered his back and legs, but he didn´t mutate. _He didn´t mutate!_

Jinx just stood there, too shocked to react. Her sword hung limply from her hand. Then she shook herself. It shouldn´t surprise her. 

It did surprise her as Stabbit was shaken off and an ooze-covered shape staggered to the patch of dry soil. She´d half expected Stabbit to win, but there the mutated Minion was, no longer invisible thanks to the thick layer of blue fluid. Behind them the browns, reds and Ramul held off the slugs, and by the sound of it that fight was almost over. Here matters were different. 

Sayron strode forward. "Don´t let him get any closer," he growled in a low voice. "I´ve got him." His sword went up, and while Jagged was still jumping for him, claws outstretched, Sayron´s heavy gauntlet closed around his throat. The Minion uttered a rattling hiss and pulled his claws over the Overlord´s arm, but then his grip cramped. The hiss ended in a halting gurgle. The leader of the green clan looked down. 

His entire stomach had been sliced open, with one stroke of the huge sword. Sayron retracted his weapon, threw Jagged to the ground and planted the sword through his chest for a second time. A high scream escaped from the green Minion. His back arched. Then he thudded back down, and moved no more. 

Sayron´s red-hot eyes cooled. Then he looked at the scratches Jagged had left upon his arm. They were glowing slightly. 

Soaker and Miko ran forward and Sayron knelt for them. "Careful, Lord," Soaker spoke. "We can heal this if we´re quick." He closed his large eyes, and Miko followed his example. They moved their webbed hands over the wounds, and blue ooze slowly started to seep up from them. The glow diminished, and the wounds slowly closed. Sayron exhaled deeply. "Thank you," he spoke, and it was clear he meant it. 

As the Overlord turned away, Ramul slowly walked to his former horde leader´s dead body. A flood of blue blood leaked from the huge wound in his stomach, his empty, glowing eyes were half closed and his tongue lolled from his mouth. Still the healthy Minion closed his eyes in respect, bowed his head and lowered his ears. 

Stripe clawed the head off the last slug and slid from the slimy back. As the group travelled on they left a battlefield behind. 

Eventually, the ooze reclaimed everything. 

Behind them the black Ruborian vultures fell from the dark sky.

In the Netherworld the floating rock soared back to the barracks. On it, two young green Minions crouched down. They´d just come from the throne room, where they´d seen something that caused their ears to lie against their heads low and trembling even now. As they arrived at the barracks they timidly disembarked and ran to the green Hive as fast as they could, their heads held low. They swiftly climbed up in the vines. Once up, they stroked their claw knives past each other rapidly, creating a scraping noise and granting them the attention of green Minions and spiders everywhere in the web. 

Older Minions let themselves fall down from the upper levels. Among them, the two newborns noticed with something resembling panic, were Scythe and Whisper, the two remaining clan elders. Those two quickly made their way to the messengers. 

Whisper straightened out as far as his curved spine allowed and put up his ears. "News from the mission?" 

One of the little ones nodded. His ears trembled and he didn´t make eye contact. The elder Minion bent over slightly and lifted the newborn´s chin, paying no heed to Scythe´s barely repressed annoyance. In his eyes the question was clearly visible. 

It was barely a whisper, low even for a green Minion. "Jagged´s dead." 

Whisper´s eyes widened. Then he frowned, and shook his head. His ears drooped in confusion. "What? No…" 

"Mutated," the other muttered. "Master killed him." 

Whisper looked up, pain in his eyes. Scythe met his gaze, with the same emotion on his normally sly face. Jagged was dead. Their old friend, with whom they´d outsmarted the entirety of Everlight and saved the Hive. Their _leader_. Without him, they and Ramul would have clawed each other´s throats off long ago. Jagged had balanced them all the time, guided them, kept them alive. Now he was gone. They had no leader. 

Some Minions looked round, where an enormous, gleaming black spider hung in the air between the levels. As they watched she slowly, mournfully climbed back up. Heavy silence fell over the area around the green Hive. 

Then a hissing voice sliced that silence to shreds. "Need leader." 

Whisper abruptly looked back to Scythe. The other elder looked back, with smouldering eyes. "Know it´s true, Whisper. Can always mourn. But now… Ramul´s alone with crazy young in the Wasteland. Green horde needs replenishing. Who goes?" 

Whisper clenched his teeth. He knew it´d come to a fight, and that fight should be three-sided – between him, Scythe and Ramul. As three elders, they all had equal rights to be the new leader. But Ramul wasn´t here, and wouldn´t be for a long time. There was no possibility of a fight in the Wasteland itself. The Master didn´t tolerate clan business to be taken care of during missions. 

It would have to take place here and now. And with that Ramul would be denied his chance. Everything in Whisper protested against it, but he knew Scythe had waited for this opportunity – he´d always been the most cunning, most sly of their quartet. 

Whisper´s eyes lit up. He´d been the one closest to Jagged. The horde leader had almost given his own life out of fury when Whisper had been killed on Everlight. And with less than a Minion brain, one could see the news of his death affected Whisper more than Scythe.  
>Of course, that had no role in choosing the new horde leader. What mattered now was strength, and cunning. <p>

Around the two elders an empty ring had been created almost unnoticed. Even as they stretched their claws some youngsters turned invisible and darted back.

Something was going on at the Green Hive. 

Scabies slowed his pace, causing his red parrot to wobble on his shoulder and flap his wings to regain his balance. The brown Minion looked up with narrowed eyes, trying to see between the tangled vines rendering the green territory almost invisible from the outside.  
>A fight? Had the pecking order been disturbed? <p>

Climbing up was forbidden for the members of the other clans, and it could mean large scars or even death, but there were blues close now who weren´t named Mortis, and Scabies was certain his clan members would call some of them so he could be resurrected without a price. There was so much commotion at the green Hive now he was getting both very curious and certain of the fact he wouldn´t be spotted immediately. He exchanged glances with Duda and started climbing.

Scythe was gone from sight almost immediately and forced Whisper to do the same. Invisibility made every fight harder, but also for the opponent; in visibility it would be far easier to strike vital organs. It wasn´t impossible to find out the other´s position, however; Whisper would recognize Scythe´s scent anywhere, and the opposite was true as well. The two Minions had no secrets from each other. Scythe followed in hot pursuit as Whisper climbed the vines to the upper levels with large leaps, disturbing spider mothers and scattering their offspring. Some little green Minions fled on threads of black silk, chittering as they went. 

Whisper shot into a nest and rolled himself in the tangled, discarded silk of an empty egg cocoon. The scent of eggs, young and mother´s silk was heavy, at least to him, and he hoped it´d conceal his personal stench enough to make him stand out less among all the other greens. He rubbed himself with the scent and then exited the nest, to wait beside the entrance until Scythe would reveal himself. 

Smells whirled through each other. This wasn´t a good place to hunt by smell, but he almost never needed to – not him, whose position had been fixed until now. As elder he was sure of his rank, not constantly busy proving himself like a newborn… 

_Jagged… everything´s so strange._

A new smell interrupted his thoughts. Whisper breathed in deeply. A grim smile curled his mouth around his canines. _Yes._

He waited until his rival – he´d hoped never to think of Scythe that way – was close enough, claws ready and knives out to strike. His breathing was silent. 

He struck. 

A sudden cry, a dark fluid on his knives. Whisper immediately jumped away and licked the blood off so it wouldn´t betray him. 

Not fast enough. A deadly hiss resounded behind him. "Whisssper…" 

Whisper snarled back and swung his tail as he felt and smelled Scythe just behind him. The other Minion yelped as the ivory spikes at the end struck his wounds, but didn´t slow.

"Mother silk can´t hide you," he chuckled. 

They reached the top of the web, where free vines grew scarce and the two were forced to jump between them, all too visible by the movement of the living ropes and on each other´s heels at all times. Scythe clawed open Whisper´s leg, Whisper countered with long scratches across Scythe´s scaly back. At times they formed one tangled, furious ball of flinging claws and knives, and both barely had a hand at the vines to keep them from smacking into solid basalt at the bottom. Both knew that was the other´s intention. Death wasn´t permanent, but did mean absolute defeat. 

Minion blood clotted fast, but they both had acquired so many wounds both Whisper and Scythe felt light-headed with blood loss. Not for the first time, Whisper realized this wasn't just a test of strength, but also of stamina; if he´d faint, Scythe would win. 

His sight was growing hazy already. The smells rising from below mingled into an illegible mess in his nostrils. Scythe´s scent was gone… 

Whisper remained hanging there for a moment, making sure his vine didn´t move. Where was his rival? 

Something moved above him. 

The next moment the air was whacked from his lungs and he lost his grip on the vine.

Scythe, far heavier than Whisper remembered, had thrown himself on top of him and now forced him down, no matter how much he tried to grab the aerial roots to regain control. They were both visible now, and hot blood streamed from between Scythe´s fingers as he kept holding on as they slid down with high speed. His other hand lay around Whisper´s throat in an iron grip. How did he muster the strength? 

The glowing yellow eyes of the upper Minion pierced the other´s with an expression of murder. Whisper looked back furiously, but helplessly as well. He refused to accept Scythe as leader… not this way… 

_Not this way!_

He writhed and clawed at nearby vines, but Scythe jumped and grabbed his throat with both claws. They were falling freely now, and not a second later they bounced off a net of woven vines. Scythe´s claw knives sliced into Whisper´s shoulders and throat. Whisper clawed at Scythe´s eyes and ears and managed to rip off almost all skin of his left ear. Scythe didn´t even blink his eyes. There was madness in them. 

Whisper briefly caught a glimpse of a brown Minion with a red parrot and wide eyes before they both rolled off the net, and out of the web. Black, gleaming basalt rushed up to meet them. 

Then… darkness.

**Maraxus: And there we have it… things are really getting bad**

**Gnarl: I agree, I just wish we didn't need that blasted elf**

**Maraxus: We need this temporary alliance with Queen Fay, but if the Master says the word we'll storm her little refuge. Anyway, all readers please review or this story will not be continued. Sunjinjo has created this entire masterpiece so a little gratitude is not too much to ask for.**


	26. Ancient power, new purpose Part 2

**General: This update is thanks to exninja and Lord of the Tsurani for their reviews**

**Jinx: Yeah thanks you two.**

**General: So how are you holding up?**

**Jinx: I'll feel a lot better when we get out of the Wasteland.**

**General: You and me both.**

**Jinx: Okay disclaimer time. You want to do it?**

**General: I do not claim this epic story, it belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart I am the humble host on fanfiction. Jinx and the other OCs are her creation.**

**Jinx: Enjoy.**

**Ancient power, new purpose Part 2**

Darkness replaced blue light effortlessly, but it didn´t bring any comfort. 

For the travellers in the Wasteland the remaining hours of the day passed in a haze. They left the lake far behind and travelled north, led by Florian. As the night fell everyone was glad to make camp and get some sleep, though for some even that was a problem. Even Sayron lay awake for a time, plagued by memories and painful muscles. His eyes flickered and changed colour in irregular ways.

Jinx fell asleep almost instantly, though it bordered on unconsciousness. She kept shivering, and her sleep was undoubtedly full of nightmares. 

As all the servants of darkness had eventually fallen asleep, the only one who wasn´t one rose from his place and picked his way between the sleeping bodies, across the cracked black rock. He climbed a nearby slope and went for a plateau outside the sights of the others. There, Florian Greenheart closed his eyes and concentrated. 

Almost instantly a sky blue light bloomed up, and the shape of a slender, magnificently dressed woman appeared. Fay smiled and there was pity in her slanted eyes as she saw the state of her most trusted lieutenant; covered in black dust and small injuries, and clearly exhausted. "How are you doing so far, Florian?" 

"Milady," Florian spoke softly but urgently, "with all due respect, but you don´t want a pact with Sayron of the Netherworld. I beg of you, think your plans through one more time." 

Fay frowned. "It´s the only way, Florian. With him by our side we have a far greater chance to overthrow the Emperor, you know this." 

Florian looked deep into her eyes. "Milady. There is another way. I agreed with you at first, but now I´ve travelled with him I´m sure it´s not a good idea to make him our ally. My proposal is simple – we allow him to find the shards, you restore the object for him, and then you let him descend into the Sanctuary, towards the Shrines… and him." 

"The Lord of the Deep," Fay nodded slowly. Her frown deepened. "It is an idea, but is it really the way…?" 

"Have no pity, milady. He´s a heartless murderer and will turn against you without hesitation when the Empire is history." 

Fay nodded. "I will think about it. Thank you for your advice." 

"I only wish the best for you," Florian answered, gravely serious. 

"I know." Fay smiled. "Try to get some sleep. Good luck, Florian." 

"Good night, milady." 

Fay dissolved in the light she´d arrived in. Florian tiredly rubbed his eyes and sank down against the black rock. He looked up, wishing there´d be stars visible between the circling black clouds. Complicated. Everything was so very complicated. Everything was entwining.  
>But he´d succeed.<p>

_He hadn´t succeeded._

This was Whisper´s first thought as he awoke hours later and saw the round face of a blue hovering above him like a pale moon. He´d fallen to his death. He´d _lost_. Scythe was the horde leader now. 

He scrambled up and stared beyond the blue Minion. The way things looked in the web told him matters had returned to normal. If the ranks had the new shape he expected, he´d missed the recognition – the moment when the clan bowed and lowered their ears for the new leader. 

He´d never do that for Scythe. 

Green Minions weren´t known for their honesty, but this fight had been wrong. Ignoring Ramul, challenging an equal without parlay… he´d _never_ lower his ears for Scythe. 

A large black spider descended from the web in front of him as he approached it. Whisper knelt down before his mount. She was visibly saddened; her pedipalps were folded timidly beneath her body and she hung low between her legs. The Minion laid a hand between her large red eyes and smiled weakly. His spider reminded him of one upside of the fact he hadn´t made it; if Scythe would have lost to him, he might have done something to his beloved mount. He could do that to Scythe´s spider, of course, but he felt it wasn´t the time for revenge yet. 

If only because Ramul deserved a part in that, too, for what´d been denied him.

Darkness lay over the gorge where the travellers of the Wasteland had made camp. But it wasn´t like that for all of them. 

One of them was still awake, and where his yellow eyes pierced the dark he saw whirling blue lights. His right shoulder was burning with icy fire. Gloob was completely still, except for the convulsions that shook him every now and then. His eyes were open wide, though they´d been closed for much of the day, and contrary to his former comatose state he seemed to be fully awake now. 

A faint wisp of green flickered in his eyes. The yellow kept pushing it back, however, so it couldn´t bloom to cyan. 

Gloob might be seeing blue lights; he was fighting the influences of the bite with everything he had left in him. He desperately tried to hold on to Soaker´s healing magic, so he wouldn´t stray further into the madness that awaited him. He did so with his mind, however, for all his muscles were limp and he couldn´t lift a finger. This was a battle he´d never fought before, and he was losing. 

As the rest of the horde slept around him, the once strong brown Minion lay perfectly still, with eyes wide open, and waited for the dawn.

Dawn came, blue and miserable. 

There wasn´t much food left. Sayron forbade them to turn to the meat of the Wasteland itself, because how long would it take them to mutate then? And so they all travelled on as good as empty stomachs, worsening the situation – certainly because Jinx had been forced to tie Gloob to her back now. He couldn´t even hold on himself. Sayron didn´t comment, and Jinx and Stripe refused to leave the brown behind, so nothing was changed. 

After a few of the longest hours since the start of the mission Florian suddenly leaped forward. "There´s a shard close by," he spoke hastily. He ran up the slight slope they´d been climbing and reached the top. Sayron and the rest joined him and looked down into a small valley, half surrounded by cliffs. The Overlord groaned. 

The valley was mainly flooded by ooze, the way water floods a swamp. And the air was filled with croaking, cackling noises, unmistakably made by birds. 

In the middle of the valley, on a piece of dry rock, was the inviting glow of a shard. Around it, however, lay a maze of nests and roosts, and between them dozens of huge birds tended to their own business. They were clearly flightless, but very capable of attacking, and marked with a naked, glowing blue chest and eyes. 

Soaker came standing next to Sayron. "I´ve heard stories about these. They´re called boombos." 

In the throne room Gnarl shook his head. "I hadn´t expected they were still alive. They were unpredictable in the best of cases. Get Zap," he spoke to a Minion walking past him with a broom. "They´re going to need advice from an expert."

The advisor looked on as the brown ran to the floating rock. The past day, Kniff had departed for the barracks on that same rock, his ears limp and his eyes only faintly glowing. He´d reacted with incredible relief to the fact Jinx was still alive after the ooze hole, but Jagged´s transformation had only made him more concerned about her fate. It surprised Gnarl he wasn´t back already, but he could imagine Kniff needed some time alone, with just the mortal fear in his own head. 

The bond between that Minion and the horde leader kept puzzling him. Why was the human girl that attached to Kniff? And why did the little runt return so much love? 

The advisor groaned as the floating rock returned. Zap and the messenger weren´t the only ones on it. There was a tuque hat, too. 

More important was the fact the old blue Minion was present with information about the boombos that´d been gathered first-hand. Zap was the last survivor from the caves near Angelis, where the blues had hidden before Vessperion had found them. There they´d survived with the huge birds for years, and only because of their resurrecting talents. Blues and boombos were arch enemies now. 

Zap, Kniff and the messenger gathered around the pool. Gnarl rose, walked over to Kniff and dragged him along by his elbow, with a grip surprisingly strong for his age. "If you so much as try to get to the pool," the advisor hissed, "I´ll make sure you´ll _never_ see Jinx again. I´ll make you clean the dungeons with the doors closed if I have to. Shut your trap, leave me alone, and don´t try anything funny." 

Kniff nodded quickly, without even opening his mouth. Gnarl sighed and gave him a last deadly gaze. Then he turned to Zap, above the pool where Sayron could hear. "Zap, I´ve sent for you because our Master has dealings with an old acquaintance of yours." 

Zap peered into the pool near-sightedly. His rubbery lip slightly curled in revulsion. "Boombos." 

"Yes." 

"Be very careful, Lord. By the look of it they´re settled in this valley. When they´re nesting these birds are even more aggressive than normal." He shivered. "And they´re very dangerous at best." 

Gnarl looked through his Master´s eyes more carefully. "I believe these are considerably bigger than those below Angelis… and Unholy Lord, are those teeth in their beaks?" 

"They´re glowing blue, too. Don´t let them injure you." 

"…and claws on their wings! What did the ooze do to them?" 

"I´m glad I´m not standing there." 

Sayron coughed briefly. "Guys, this isn´t encouraging me…" 

"Sorry, Sire. Zap, what would be the best way to get to that shard?" 

The blue Minion kept staring into the pool. "I remember the day Lord Vessperion came to our cave and managed to distract the birds long enough to get our entire clan and the Hive outside. He sent Minions of the other clans to steal eggs. All birds instantly turned against the egg thief, and didn´t think of us anymore. Quite a lot of Minions died that day, and I´m still grateful to every one of them." 

Sayron hummed in thought. "Those Minions died. But I have something better than running browns." He turned around and looked at Jinx, with eyes rippling in a grin.

Jinx looked up. "What? No! I´m not bait…" Even as she said it, she realized she in fact was, and Sayron was nodding at her. 

"Yes, you are. You and the reds." He turned to the blues. "Soaker, Miko, Floater, Eel; steal four eggs, as fast as you can, and get to Jinx and the reds. Do it quickly. Please stay alive. Jinx, boys; position yourselves on the cliffs above the ooze. Distract the birds as long as you can." The Overlord turned to the last blue. "Drip. You´ll go for the shard." 

The blue saluted enthusiastically. "Yes, Lord!" 

"Don´t die. This applies to all of you." 

Jinx sighed and released the rope with which Gloob was tied to her back. 

"Good luck," Zap´s soft, gurgling voice resounded through the mist pool. Soaker nodded curtly. Then the four blues ran for the valley, and split up as they went so they made less of an easy target. 

Soaker got hold of an egg first, from a nest on the edge of the colony. Despite that, a bone-tough, hooked beak cleaved through the air and almost through his back, and the parent bird immediately came after him. Others raised their heavy heads and even the sleeping birds opened their small, blue eyes. Large clawed feet splashed through the murky ooze. The colony was slowly coming into motion, and they didn´t only go for the blue replacing leader now making off with the large speckled egg in his arms. 

Eel jumped to the sides to avoid the approaching birds on his way to his own target nest. One of the boombos spread his wings unexpectedly, and the Minion would have lost his left eye if he hadn´t ducked in time. Now three bloody scratches ran across his eyebrow ridge. He zigzagged on and landed in a nest spread-eagled, breaking some eggs as he went.

Glowing yolk and half-formed embryos came to light. He grabbed one of the intact eggs and immediately ran off again. In the meantime, Soaker threw his egg up to Fever, hanging from the cliff by his feet and climbing up as fast as he could as he caught the egg. The boombos started to climb the cliff at that point, cumbersome, but aided by their wing claws and beaks. Eel reached the cliff and flung the egg up to Simmer. The red uttered a crackling laugh and used all his skill to stay ahead of the birds as Eel rushed to safety. 

The increasingly angry boombos forced Floater to stay at the edges, but he managed to get to his own egg without too much trouble. It was just a little run to the cliffs, and Hoarse could depart immediately. 

Now the birds spread into three directions, but the way was still shut for Drip; the blue couldn't run to the shard unhindered. For that, an egg would also have to be kidnapped to a point directly behind the shard, and that was the most difficult of everything. Miko looked over the nesting place with fearful eyes, but then gathered his courage and ran for it. He dodged and turned like mad as every bird suddenly turned to him, and slid through the ooze on his belly three times to escape between the large feet. The birds were plump and dense and ran into each other in large clouds of feathers and ooze in their hurry to get to the cliffs. Miko was caught between them once and the stiff feathers choked him on all sides, but he was already gone before the beaks could get to him. 

He could run on as good as unhindered for a moment, but the second time his luck had run out. Miko tripped as one of the birds cut him off and fell face-first into the ooze, yards from a nest; then the boombo raised his heavy beak to let it descend upon the blue´s back and kill him – 

– but not before Miko had been yanked away and lifted off the ground. 

"Don´t scare me like that! Come on, get that egg!" 

Miko, in his sudden flying position, was just clear enough to grasp below him and get hold of an egg. The boombos screeched in fury, but he was out of their reach; he flew over their raised heads and snapping beaks and in the direction of the cliffs. 

Then he realized what had snatched him. 

Jinx quickly hauled in her rope. As she reached Miko she lifted him to her back and soared along the cliffs to right behind the shard. "Hey! Beauties! Come over here, I´ve got the egg! Don't mind those glowing guys, they´ve probably boiled your eggs by now! You might be able to save this one!" 

The birds turned more of their attention to her and streamed together below her, to try and climb up. Slowly a path was freed from Drip to the shard… 

The little Minion ran. 

Jinx and the reds did everything to keep the boombos´ attention and make sure they kept climbing. Drip wasn´t out to get an egg, but he´d certainly be killed if too many birds noticed him. The young Minion managed to dodge a few and tripped once, then he could grab the shard and run back. He lured four birds with him, but Sayron and the others made short work of them. The Overlord took the shard. "Jinx! Lead them back!" 

"Aye, Lord!" 

"No, wait!" Zap´s voice suddenly resounded. "Boombos are very protective. They´ll follow the eggs, and otherwise the thieves, they have to be returned!" 

"Jinx!" Sayron roared. "Don´t come back! You´ll take them with you!" 

Jinx looked down. The birds on the ground were following her with almost her own speed, in the direction of the Overlord. Some of them had already seen Sayron and now stormed for him and the horde. There were far too few Minions to withstand the boombos if the entire colony would turn against them… 

"Run, Lord! I´ll put the eggs back!" 

Sayron nodded and turned, to run off with heavy steps. Florian was a green and golden flash as he made off even faster. Stripe was the only one who kept standing; he flung Gloob towards Soaker and then jumped for the front most boombo himself, to throw it back into the group with more than its former speed. That slightly slowed the approaching birds. 

Jinx descended the cliffs in a flying rush and picked her footholds with care – as many as possible consisted of the heads of climbing boombos. On her way she picked up the eggs of Hoarse and Fever; she could just fit three eggs in the crook of her arm. Simmer, the most agile climber, descended with her. Jinx tried to banish the horrible symmetry with Parch´ death from her mind. 

They landed at the foot of the cliff with dull thuds. Above their heads, Hoarse and Fever sprinted away along the walls. 

Jinx exchanged glances with Simmer. The red´s eyes were wide and glittering brightly. "Shall we throw them?" 

"Don't want to break them," he sizzled. "Roll?" 

"Worth a try," the horde leader grinned nervously. The boombos were approaching swiftly through the ooze. If the heavy beaks wouldn´t crack their spines, then the ooze-covered feathers would mean their demise. 

Simultaneously, they rolled their eggs towards the birds. The front two spread their wings over them immediately and screeched threateningly, but the rest kept going. Jinx and Simmer flew up the walls again. 

The boombos followed. 

"They´re furious," Jinx realized. "They have to kill something. They´ll only stop if there´s been blood." 

The birds that´d gone after Sayron had turned around. The egg thieves were up for grabs. 

"I´ll go," Simmer muttered. 

Jinx stared at him. "Simmer. No." 

The red looked down at the climbing boombos. "Have to distract them." 

Jinx wanted to grab his arm, but then realized he´d burn her. Simmer was about the let go of the rock. 

Then a light flashed past them, straight down to the ooze. 

"_Hoarse!_" 

The large red Minion landed at the foot of the cliff, just out of the ooze. The boombos turned away from the two climbers. 

Higher up the rock-face Fever stared at the red horde leader. The look in his eyes was unreadable. Hoarse looked back at him for a moment, then the boombos forced his attention down to more pressing matters. 

He was still agile, even though he´d been at the front line for years and had gone through everything coming with the position. He jumped up and ran across heads, necks, lumpy bodies and spread wings towards the middle of the ooze marsh. Every now and then his feet touched the ground, but it was always solid rock. Jinx and Simmer looked on, captured by disbelief and fear. 

Hoarse looked back once. Even from this distance Jinx could read what was in his eyes. _Go. I´m sacrificing myself, what part of that don´t you understand?_

"Thank you," she muttered. Then she turned away and shot back across the cliff. Simmer followed a moment later. 

A cry echoed away across the marsh. 

Jinx and Simmer landed in the black dust and looked around wide-eyed. 

There, amongst retreating boombos, lay the body of a red Minion. Steaming blood flowed from a huge wound in his back. The red leader had died for them. 

But he lay spread-eagled atop a nest. And his skin was of a fiery red, not pink. 

In Mortis´ Well, a flaming soul floated down. 

Jinx smiled weakly as she cast a last glance over her shoulder. Then she ran after Sayron and the rest, Simmer and Fever on her heels.

That night a gurgling resounded from within the camp outside Nordberg´s walls. It quickly changed into screams and incoherent roars. Not long after, the Minions on the bell tower started ringing the alarm bells, and everyone in the city was awake. No one needed to ask what was going on. 

Seffec was dressed in half a minute and ran outside as he was still buckling his armour in place. Masud, Omari and the others joined him. The Ruborian leader took the lead and sprinted to the gates, to halt there and stare at the camp for a moment. 

The screams were bloodcurdling. 

"Come on," he commanded. "Sethos, Abasi, take some of your men and make sure nothing gets into the city." The two nodded and stayed behind. Seffec and the others ran on, accompanied by a growing group of Minions, their eyes glowing in the dark. Their feet scrunched across the half-frozen ground – this time of year, there was more than a little night-frost. Some red Minions melted it in their footsteps. 

"Masud, Issa, get those ladders with your archers." 

The archers quickly climbed up along the camp walls, made out of sharpened tree trunks. Nobody could get out. That would only be possible if it was clear everyone was healthy. And tonight was the least probable moment for that decision to be taken. 

Seffec hoisted himself up and looked over the walls. His heart sank. 

Everywhere in the camp, chaos reigned. The tents and shelters of the people of the Wasteland had been thrown over for the main part, the cloth torn, the sticks broken. Dark puddles of blood gleamed in the moonlight. Some pairs of white, glowing eyes turned his way. 

"Archers… fire." 

More eyes turned to him, but half a second later the screaming started again, with new power and a new tone. This time blue, lightly glowing blood sprayed through the air. Seffec spanned a small crossbow himself and tried not to think of who these people had been just the night before. He shot everyone with glowing eyes, and together with the other archers they kept going until they stopped moving. 

The mutants had lost all intelligence, so they kept flowing towards the Ruborians, trying to climb the walls and making it very easy to kill them all. Not one of them thought of seeking shelter. As they finished, the camp was silent. 

Seffec flung a rope and then himself over the wall and thudded down onto the hard, frozen ground. His boots rustled through sticks and leaves as he walked through the camp, soon followed by his men. He had both his sword and crossbow in his hands, ready for a second round. 

"Are there any survivors?" Masud whispered at his side. 

"Hopefully." Seffec looked around with narrowed eyes. He thought he heard faint voices…  
>Further away, at the other end of the camp, some tents had fallen over each other, so a large surface of cloth lay spread across the ground. He yanked it up. <p>

Fearful eyes gazed up at him, and that fear barely diminished as the men, women and children saw he was no mutant. All in all, barely ten people had made it out alive.  
>"Nobody´s injured? Nobody´s been bitten or contaminated in other ways?" Seffec´s eyes softened. "Good." <p>

"We arrived last," an emaciated man whispered breathlessly. "We didn´t have the cursed land that deep into our bones yet. The rest did." Tears streamed across his sunken cheeks, and even as two others hoisted him to his feet he could barely stand. "It was a massacre…" 

"It´s over," Seffec tried to comfort him. "You´re safe now. You can go and live within the city walls." He looked around. "Issa, would you go and get Abasi and the others? We´re going to need them – I want the bodies buried tonight." 

The archer nodded and ran off. 

That night only the sound of shovels to rock hard, cold soil resounded. The camp was changed into a mass grave.

In the two days that followed the Overlord and his followers were being led east. And with that, towards the huge leaning shadow on the horizon where the sun was supposed to rise, if the sun had existed in this realm of shadow to begin with. 

Vessperion´s Tower dominated their view every time they looked up. Every time the Minions´ eyes lit up. Every time a shiver of nervous expectation ran down Jinx´ spine. And every time Sayron´s eyes lingered on his father´s domain a little longer. It was impossible to tell what he felt. 

Of the fifteen Minions they´d started out with thirteen remained – twelve, if one didn´t count Gloob. Jinx was secretly glad she was carrying him on her back, because this way she didn´t feel inclined to open his eyes and check the colour. She fiercely hoped they´d find a Minion gate soon. Maybe there was still time to heal him with that energy, or send him back to the Netherworld and the influence of the entire blue clan. They´d also be able to call Hoarse back. Mortis had already brought him back from the dead, and the red leader said he was very glad he´d just died. He wasn´t the only one to think so. 

Jinx started to see similarities between Giblet and Fever. The powerful red Minion hadn´t liked the fact of the leader´s death at all, and he´d definitely hadn´t wanted to take over. He hadn´t lifted a finger to command Simmer. 

Until now, there hadn´t been a way for Gnarl to send out a digger. But at the start of this day he´d reported he´d felt a suitable area, about half a day´s travel away from them.  
>And so the old Tower came closer and closer. The land around them started to rise in irregular rock formations and gorges – once the passes and valleys Vessperion had looked out over from his high throne. <p>

At that moment Jinx looked up again and looked past the middle-sized ooze pool they were heading for. At the other side, the rock seemed to have taken a strange shape. She narrowed her eyes – it resembled part of a staircase, turned over and overgrown, but a stairs nonetheless… 

"Lord…" 

Sayron looked up. He frowned. "What is that?" 

Jinx carefully walked around the broad pool and studied the large stone slab. It indeed was part of a staircase. And this close to the Tower, it could only have come from there. She looked around. Not far from the slab lay a fragment of a statue – a black arm, inlaid with golden details. She strode on. There seemed to be other parts, including a hooded face with a mouth cloth as Sayron wore one as well… 

On her back, Gloob opened his eyes. 

Jinx bent over and dug out the face. Golden eyes looked at her from within a dark, black marble face. She knew those eyes. 

"…Vessperion?" 

"_Jinx!_" 

She spun around, but at the same moment a suddenly immensely strong arm yanked back her head. Nails cut into her cheeks and throat. A hiss resounded close to her ear, and from the corner of her eye she could see a blue glow. Fear engulfed her as she realized what had happened, and what that glow exactly was. She tried to cry Gloob´s name, but it were his claws muffling her voice. 

Then something else jumped on her back and dragged off the finally mutated Minion. The next moment two shapes rolled across the dust-covered ground next to the stairs. One of them was bigger than a brown Minion should ever be, had a skin flecked with blue, and an overlarge mouth dripping with drool. The other was almost as large as his opponent, wore a centurion´s helmet and bore a large scar along the middle of his back. 

Both of them were rolling down the sloping soil in the direction of the ooze pool. 

Jinx scrambled up, wiped the blood from her mouth and jumped after them. "Stripe!" 

The former leader rolled over until he was on top of Gloob and hit him in the head. Then he gripped Gloob with his legs and yanked him and himself away from the ooze. He wanted to draw his sword, but Gloob didn't give him the chance; he bit into Stripe´s arm up to the shoulder. Stripe screamed, and rightfully so; as Gloob let go and licked his lips with a blue tongue, the arm was limp and clearly broken. 

Jinx threw herself between them and tried to push them apart, but didn´t succeed – this was a fight between Minions, one over the edge of madness and the other teetering on it.

She was whacked back and hit the stairs with her head. 

As she looked on, powerlessly, the two rolled down growling, screaming and bleeding. There was nothing she could do as Gloob pushed his opponent down into the ooze. 

Even Gnarl and Sayron gasped for breath. 

Jinx uttered a scream of despair. "_No!_" 

The former leader jumped up in a fountain of ooze. He stared at his claws lengthening so rapidly the blood came dripping from his fingertips. His bones creaked and he screamed in pain as his stance changed and he was forced to hunch over, but his voice was changing as well; his deep, rasping yell audibly became low and gurgling. He threw back his head and shut his eyes. 

As he opened them again he was staring straight at Jinx with an empty, glowing blue gaze. 

She stared back, her eyes wide, and slowly shook her head. "No… no…" 

Behind Stripe, Gloob hoisted himself up and stepped from the pool as well. The ooze dripped off the two huge Minions. Stripe tore off his helmet and threw aside his sword. 

"Sire," Gnarl swallowed. 

Sayron was on his way. He kept his sword low and stepped swiftly around the pool to position himself in front of Jinx. It was clear she couldn´t fight – she seemed to be in shock.

He raised his weapon and swept it in a low curve to decapitate Stripe, but the Minion was faster; he rolled out of the way, jumped around his former Master and clawed himself up along his back. Before he could sink his teeth into Sayron´s neck, however, a green flash shot for him and flung him towards the remains of Vessperion´s statue. Ramul was slicing away at Stripe like a whirlwind. 

Another Minion had been just as quick. Simmer had climbed the rubble and was now flinging flame after flame at Gloob. The ooze on his skin hissed and bubbled away, and the mutated Minion started to notice the burns. He screamed as Simmer´s fire blinded him in one eye. Fever joined in, and a few seconds later Gloob had changed into a fireball, screeching and clawing at his own body in an attempt to extinguish the fire. He didn´t succeed. He smacked down into the dust, as his scorching flesh retracted from his bones. 

In the meantime Stripe had flung Ramul away, but the green had evaded the ooze and had gotten away in invisibility. He´d come back, with Stabbit in tow, and had succeeded clawing off Stripe´s arm at the elbow. It didn´t stop the gigantic mutant, however. 

Now the reds turned against him as well. Jinx and Sayron stared at the battle, not able to look away. The only one not fighting was Aches; even the blues ran forward in an attempt to push the brown mutant down. He swatted them away like insects. Even with just one arm left Stripe was still the most ferocious Minion who´d ever set foot in the upper world. 

Ramul was on his back. The rat fur on his shoulders was on fire. Blue blood dripped from the corners of his mouth and flew around with every move. But the worst were his eyes – blue, empty, and staring straight at Jinx. 

He finally sunk to his knees. 

"Stripe," she whispered. 

His claw shot out, and an uncontrolled spasm flung Ramul from his back. Then he shivered one last time, and fell silent. The glow of his eyes faded. 

Stripe was dead.

Kniff stared into the pool wide-eyed. Tears glistened in the corners of his eyes. 

All was silent in the throne room. Quaver and the others were all looking down in disbelief, and even Gnarl seemed shocked to the bone. Stripe had been the leader for years, seemingly indestructible, always ready for action. Most horde members owed their lives to him. As Jinx had taken over, he´d still unofficially been their leader, because he´d advised Jinx and taught her to take on the ways of a horde leader. She´d always treated him as a superior. 

Now she was alone. And Kniff knew exactly how she felt right now, because he himself felt the same pain of that gaping wound. 

Before his eyes the horde leader fell to her knees in front of the body and buried her face in her hands.

Sayron had waited until she was finished. 

He´d let her dig a grave, for both Stripe and Gloob. He´d allowed it because he knew how important Stripe had been to her; he, raised by the brown clan, had felt something similar for the old leader. Admittedly, even though he´d been raised by them, he´d never felt as attached to them as Jinx was, but he´d agreed Stripe deserved a grave, and shouldn´t just be left behind. 

They travelled on, and even Stabbit was quiet. The Overlord had made it very clear to Florian certain mockeries weren´t approved of as Jinx was still digging the grave. 

Gnarl reported he´d gotten Scabies and Glottis ready to replace Stripe and Gloob. They were waiting to come to the surface as soon as Sayron found suitable soil for a Minion gate. That time had yet to come, however. 

They found more remains of the old Tower, as they were getting increasingly close. They also found another shard. They had ten in total now, including the two already stored in the Netherworld. 

Sayron gazed up at the Tower. "Elf." 

"Yes, Scourge?" 

The Overlord repressed a growl. "Where is this Sanctuary of yours, anyway? I want to be able to find it even if you kick the bucket." 

"Hidden where you´d never dare search," Florian answered. He was silent after that. 

In the evening they found another shard, lying by itself on a little island of solid ground in the middle of an ooze pool. As Sayron approached it, Gnarl had told him to stay still. "Sire… you won´t believe me, but this is suitable soil…" 

Four closely packed Minion gates had dug their way out of the ground. Sayron had been disappointed by the fact it was impossible to call up a Tower Gate, but he´d made camp nonetheless, after he´d summoned reinforcements; Hoarse had been brought back, and Scythe had come up as the new green leader. Ramul had briefly looked at him and then curled up on the other side of the horde. 

Scabies and Glottis, too, had come up, together with the two shards that´d been stored in the Tower. Both browns were clearly mourning for Stripe and Gloob; their ears were low and mainly Scabies was looking nothing like his old self. Him and Gloob had been close friends. He´d left his parrot in the Netherworld, and he was clearly lonely without it. 

Jinx curled up on the edge of the horde and stared at the Minion gate across the black sand. She missed Kniff more than ever.

In the Netherworld Gnarl slowly descended the stairs to his quarters in a lower level, where his Iron Maiden stood. His ears hung low. It hadn´t been a good day, and even he wasn´t unaffected. 

As he disappeared from sight, a small shape slipped through the enormous gate to the throne room. Yellow eyes lit up. A little claw was outstretched to the portal on the ceiling.  
>Nobody noticed as lighting struck.<p>

In the upper world a single brown Minion climbed out of the gate on the small island. He laid the long plank he´d taken with him across the ooze and cautiously walked over it, towards the group of sleeping horde members huddled together a little further. 

Jinx lay on the edge. The Minions lay down beside her. It didn´t take long before the grey eyes opened and she met his gaze. 

"…Kniff…?" 

He smiled. "Hi." 

"No, you shouldn´t be here…" 

He placed his claw on her hand. She fell silent. 

"…I´m glad you are." 

He snuggled up against her and she enveloped him in her arms. No one else noticed, but for two horde members the night was slightly less dark.

_Hidden where you´d never dare search._

Sayron´s eyes were closed, but they were open somewhere else. They were glowing, not orange, but a nervous yellow. And they stared into another flaming pair. 

"Use your head, son. Both of you. You didn´t inherit your brains from strangers." 

Sayron was standing in front of his father, a flaming, armoured form filling even him with awe and fear. Still the Overlord managed to take his eyes off him long enough to look to his side. There was Jinx, smaller and more fragile than him, but glowing in the light Lord Vessperion emanated. 

The Overlord of times long past laid his hands on their shoulders. "I´m sure you´ll do great. You´ll find that Sanctuary… because you do dare to search there. Now go." 

The flaming form faded. Sayron outstretched his hand to him, but everything around him went black now the light had disappeared. 

"Father…!"

Blue light flooded in as Jinx opened her eyes, early the next morning. For a moment she remained still, curled up in the black dust covering her from head to toe, her eyes open wide. Then she raised her head, very slowly. 

She lay on the edge of the horde, the sleeping Minions, Florian and Sayron behind her. Kniff still lay against her. Still, it wasn´t one of them who´d caught her attention. 

On the island that had borne four Minion gates the night before, now glowed something resembling a living extension of the ooze around it. A large blue ball, pulsating lightly, and unmistakably an enormous slug… but bigger than any Jinx had ever seen before, even larger than the ones at Atrej´s lake. 

The feelers were retracted. The slug clearly hadn´t been hungry, but tired. 

The question was if that was still the case. 

The horde leader looked down to her sleeping friend. She didn´t know what Kniff had been planning, but she´d wanted to send him back to the Netherworld as soon as possible, before Sayron noticed he was here. She groaned weakly. All this time, as Jagged, Gloob and Stripe had been taken from her, the blues weakened further and further and the fatigue claimed her, as she acquired small injuries she could barely heal from exhaustion, as Florian nagged away at everyone´s nerves, all this time Kniff´s safety had been her comfort. And now, even that was taken from her. 

The huge slug would only give up the gates if it was challenged. Jinx knew Sayron wouldn´t do so. Kniff´s return wasn´t worth that fight. 

She swore silently and felt fear and anger well up, dark and bitter. 

Kniff stirred. A moment later his yellow eyes blinked open. "What´s wrong?" he mumbled sleepily. 

Jinx closed her eyes, then looked at him. "You can´t go back. Look." 

The Minion looked up and saw the slug´s huge form. "Mm." He looked up at her again.

"Wasn´t going back." 

"Kniff…" 

"Seen enough. Not leaving you." 

Jinx sighed. Still, she couldn´t prevent herself from smiling slightly. One of them had had their way considering their opinions at the beginning of the journey, and it wasn´t her. Her status didn´t guarantee everything. "This is the way it is, Kniff. But I´m keeping an eye on you." 

"Keeping both on you." 

Now she was really smiling. Then, however, she looked to the side and frowned. "I´d better wake Sayron. We have to get out of here." She rose and carefully stepped over the sleeping Minions. She resisted the urge to kick Florian – the elf would probably make enough noise to wake the slug – and crouched down at the Overlord´s side. 

"Lord." 

Sayron mumbled something. Jinx laid a hand on his arm. "Lord Sayron?" 

"…Kelda…?" 

The horde leader briefly grinned, but wiped her face clean as the orange eyes opened. "No, Lord, it´s me. I´m sorry, but we´d better leave…" 

Sayron looked past her and saw why. "Well spotted. Wake the Minions." He reached over Aches and grabbed Florian´s face, so he covered his mouth with his metal gauntlet. The elf jolted fiercely and uttered a muffled scream, but then saw where he was. The green eyes acquired a poison gleam. Sayron let go. 

In the meantime, Jinx awoke the horde, and a little later they left with improbably little noise, for Minions. Behind them the gigantic slug remained fast asleep, and before them an inky black mountain darkened the sky – a mountain bearing the weight of Vessperion´s Tower.

Sayron felt strangely elated that day. He´d seen very well there was a new brown Minion with the horde, one with a tuque hat he knew all too well and who stayed by Jinx´ side at all times, and he´d also noticed Gnarl was grumpier than normal, something which was bound to happen if he didn´t get his way. But Kniff wasn´t causing any trouble this far, and he had a glowing sensation in his chest he hadn´t felt for a long time, and which he hadn´t expected in this land. It was the feeling he got when things ended. 

They had eleven shards now. Gnarl had estimated, taking into account the size of the shards and that of the original Tower Heart, there should be around ten shards. The advisor had raised it to twelve now. 

One more to go. And he knew, in some way, the Last Sanctuary wasn´t far away. It was something in the way Florian acted; the way his eyes rested on the horizon, his tense attitude… 

That day they travelled faster than before, and the few slugs and mutated sheep they encountered didn´t stand a chance. The formerly drifting group now had a shade of a goal in mind, and it made them more dangerous and determined than ever. 

At the end of the day, as the glow on the horizon grew dim, Florian joined Sayron at the head of the horde. "I feel the last shard is close, Scourge. The presence of the others makes it almost impossible to sense, but I feel it." The elf said it proudly, but Sayron didn´t show any token of appreciation. He nodded and strode on, the light in his eyes slightly brighter than before. 

"How far?" 

"Always closer than you think," was the answer, and the elf slid back behind him. 

They rounded a bend in the path, which had led through a rocky gorge – a gorge in the mountains around the Tower. What they saw was an unhindered view of the crumbled bastion, but slightly lower their eyes were blinded by a sparkling light in the clearing where the gorge ended. 

A shard – larger than the others, shining brightly in the evening light. 

Jinx rubbed her eyes. A faint smile tugged at her mouth. It was almost as if she could see the world in that shard, the world she would be able to return to when the Heart had been completed. She ran forward and took the final piece from the dust. With a tinkling sound it landed with the others, in the dragon leather sack on her back. Strangely enough, it still wasn´t heavy at all. 

"Now, elf, where is the Sanctuary?" Sayron asked. 

It remained silent. Florian didn´t answer, but stared at something behind the Overlord.

Sayron turned. 

There, on a ridge, against the backdrop of Vessperion´s Tower, stood a tall, broad man in golden armour and a red cloak. Before Sayron´s eyes more figures stepped up to the ridge – archers and soldiers in green and blue tunics, with square shields, long bows and uncovered swords. On both sides of the gathering legion two Sentinels stepped into sight. Somewhere close by, the roar of a Gargantuan resounded. 

Sayron turned as if stung. The gorge was blocked by more soldiers. 

"Ambush!" he roared. "Back! Pull back! Jinx, up those walls!" 

The horde scattered immediately, and as if that´d been the signal the soldiers jumped down to the clearing. Arrows thudded down into the dust and ricocheted off the black rock walls.

Jinx, already hanging from her rope and climbing up, swung left and right to dodge them, as Kniff firmly held on to her back. "How?" she panted. "How in Vessperion´s name did they get this legion here? How did they know we were here…?"

Below her, Sayron and the horde ran back through the gorge, killing soldiers left and right, but some Minions were already injured and Glottis lay dead in the gorge, four arrows in his back. Jinx´ head shot up as she heard the Gargantuan´s roar again, up ahead of Sayron.

"They knew," she muttered. "In some way, they knew." 

She looked back and started. There, in the clearing, surrounded by soldiers on all sides, was a small green and golden figure. They´d lost Florian. 

"It´s that elf outlaw!" the centurion shouted in triumph. 

"Mercy! Mercy! Please have mercy!" Florian cried. He´d unsheathed his sword, but was clearly too blinded by fear and despair to actually use it. Jinx almost felt sorry for him. 

"We have no need for mercy, elf… we have justice. To the Arena with him." With those words the centurion turned his back on him, and two soldiers grabbed the elf´s arms to drag him away. 

Florian raised his face to the sky. "Fay! Save me! _Fay!_" 

Nothing happened. Before Jinx´ eyes the elf disappeared from view behind black rocks. The horde leader nodded once as if in parting, and then swung after the rest. 

Sayron had chosen another path. Halfway through the gorge the wall had collapsed, and he was now painfully climbing the rubble. Jinx realized where he was headed, and her heart skipped a beat. She looked back, into Kniff´s eyes.

The Minion nodded, eyes wide in excitement. "Going to see it." 

Jinx caught up with the Overlord. "Florian´s been taken!" 

Sayron looked up and nodded. She caught Gnarl´s voice: "Ha! Well, saves you having to kill him, Sire…" The advisor fell silent and then swore loudly. He had good reason, because the ascending mountain path was blocked by hastily built barricades. "Master, I could swear someone betrayed our heading… but I can´t imagine who did so, because we barely know where we´re going ourselves." 

Sayron and the Minions threw themselves into the barricade, and the wood quickly gave way. In the time they needed, however, soldiers had appeared on the other side. There even was a Gargantuan with them, the creature they´d heard before. 

The battle with the soldiers was short but bloody. Sayron acquired some deep cuts and stab wounds in his arms, and his armour was dented inwards as the Gargantuan rammed him against the mountainside. It was Ramul who took him out; the green stood on the verge of the ravine, a challenging leer in his eyes, plainly inviting the twisted creature to thunder for him. The Gargantuan, simple as he was, did so. The green simply jumped for his shoulders, his back, and over him, and the Gargantuan plummeted off the mountain. 

What followed was a tiring race to the top of the mountain. Barely further away than the previous bend in the path were the soldiers they´d escaped from earlier, and they didn´t have a moment to catch their breath – they had no time to lose. The reds and Jinx followed along the mountainside, flinging small stones and boulders back to block the way or hit the soldiers whenever they could. The Empire´s troops were determined not to return empty-handed, however. They must have been waiting here for weeks, but still they seemed to be in perfect health, in contrast to Sayron and his horde. The Minions started to wear out, and so did the Overlord. 

Then Jinx almost slipped off the mountainside. She had another rope, and she didn´t fall, but it made her realize the possibility she had right now. She hung there for a fraction of a second and stared up. Then back. 

Green tunics were coming around the bend. 

Simmer halted and looked back. Jinx met his eyes. "Don´t wait! Go!" 

The red nodded and sprinted on. Jinx clenched her teeth and flung up a rope. She caught a crack between two rocks, where her weapon was rendered stuck. Then she pulled loose her other rope, so her entire weight was suspended from the rocks. She swung to and fro to shift the force. She looked back briefly. The soldiers had almost reached her, but even closer were Kniff´s yellow eyes. "This is going to be a tricky one, buddy." 

His claws tightened around her shoulders. 

The rocks above her shifted and slid off the higher mountain ridge, taking other, larger boulders with them. Jinx´ rope came free and she fell, the avalanche immediately following her. 

She hit the ground hard, scrambled up, dragged Kniff with her and ran. 

In a cloud of black dust and rubble the avalanche thundered down on the mountain path…

Sayron had halted a little further as the roar of the falling rocks had reached him. Ignoring everything Gnarl shouted at him, he turned and ran back to where they´d left Jinx as fast as his injuries allowed him. 

The billowing dust forced him to narrow his eyes. He coughed, despite his mouth cloth.  
>A little shade staggered from the black haze, towards him. Sayron´s shoulders sank in relief as it became apparent it was no soldier. <p>

Aided by Kniff, Jinx worked herself up, coughing and waving the dust away. She grinned broadly. "So much for the ambush." 

"Nice work," Sayron grinned. His eyes flared. "Jinx, thanks to you there´s nothing left between us and the Sanctuary!" 

Jinx´ eyes shot up. "Do you think…" 

"The place where I´d never dare search?" Sayron followed her gaze, and his eyes misted over. "Where else than my father´s bastion? They say a hurricane has a stable, calm eye. If that´s the place where the Tower Heart exploded… maybe there´s a stable zone. Fay barricaded herself in the only safe haven in the middle of the most dangerous realm on earth. It seemed like a good possibility, and Florian´s been leading us in this direction for days, so…" 

"Nice work," Jinx echoed. "We´re a great team." She pulled Kniff over and grinned. "We´re going to make it, aren´t we? World domination?" 

"We´ll enter history next to the Darklords themselves," Sayron smiled. 

A cough resounded from empty air. "Forgive me for interrupting this touching moment, but shouldn´t you be hurrying up? It won´t take long before more soldiers climb over their dead little friends, you know…" 

"Yes, Gnarl." Sayron winked and turned around. Jinx and Kniff were quick to follow.

The climb was long and tiring. But with every next step, everyone knew what they were doing it for, and the Tower coming closer and closer was – even now – emanating a strange, almost macabre attraction none of them could resist. Sayron now knew the call he´d heard in his dreams hadn´t been the Heart, but this bastion; it´d always been his father´s voice.

The voice of Lord Vessperion, Master of the Five Abysses. 

The Tower appeared to have been partly swallowed by the mountain. Eventually they were standing directly below an entrance, only parted from it by a winding path, in many points blocked by rubble. The entrance seemed to be a balcony, with pillars in the opening. Maybe it was a place from where Vessperion had looked out across his conquered lands. 

Sayron started walking in a faster pace. They turned the path´s many windings, and half an hour later the Overlord stepped over the edge of the balcony. As Jinx and the others worked themselves in on both his sides, he turned and looked out over the Wasteland. 

Black peaks clawed up at the sky from everywhere. Dark clouds swirled across the land below him. The pools of ooze were outstretched plains of shining blue from here, or little pinpricks of light. 

Up here it was deathly quiet; no cawing of Ruborian vultures, no calling of mutated animals or humans. Just the rushing wind, neither warm nor cold. 

Sayron sighed deeply and turned back. 

They were standing in Vessperion´s throne room. 

Many of the old pillars had fallen and damaged the floor. Part of the wall behind the throne had been wiped away, so the blue light on the horizon fell in. The throne itself was overgrown with tentacly plants, as were many of the corners of the great hall. Sayron slowly walked over – around a round hole in the floor that had probably been the mist pool of old – and stroked past the weathered armrests, the once magnificent, high back… 

"Lord?" 

He turned around. Jinx was standing at a winding staircase, leading down. She leant against the wall, and inches from her hand sprouted a plant with glowing blue leaves. 

Sayron´s face split in a grin. "I knew it."

In the Netherworld Gnarl stared down into the mist pool with hazy eyes. Memories flowed over him, some involuntarily. Back in the old Tower from where he´d left in such a rush, more than twenty years ago, all the clans with him, the Hives roughly strapped to carts… 

Next to him was someone else, looking down with the same expression. She almost never came up, but for this occasion, it was another story. Velvet smiled faintly. "At last, I get to see the Tower on the inside. Ah, all those years of wondering what Vessperion denied me…" She pursed her lips. "Well, I don´t want it anymore. Not with all that twinkly elvishness in there."

"Do you see now? Vergal, be ashamed of yourself!" 

"Synn, would you be so kind as to shut your mouth?" Vergal smiled sweetly at the female Darklord. "Of us three, you´re most closely related to the empress of the Last Sanctuary." 

Insulted to the bone, Synn shut her mouth.

The horde had just finished a long climb, but now they were in for a descent at least as long. Their way through the dark, ruined Tower and the mountain on which it was built was, however, lit by increasing quantities of glowing vegetation, and after a while the rock walls around them opened up and the stairs spiralled down through open space. 

As Jinx arrived at that point and was able to look around freely, she could do nothing else than gasp for breath. 

The air tinkled and hummed with magic. The gargantuan cave in which they emerged was filled with floating lights. Below them lay a true forest, interwoven with wooden platforms and arbors, partly overgrown with vines. The air trembled with the wingbeat of fairies and the chittering of gnomes. The horde tried to see everything, but it was clear this Last Sanctuary stretched down for miles, maybe even as deep as the Netherworld itself. This cave was just the beginning. 

Sayron reached the final steps and strode onto solid rock – though his boots immediately sunk away in a lush carpet of dark green grass, mingled with lightly glowing flowers everywhere. 

A little way above them hung a light wooden platform with an elegantly crafted balustrade. As the Overlord looked on, a sky blue light bloomed up. 

"Greetings, milady!" Sayron bowed with a grin. 

Fay´s bright blue eyes slid over the group. "Where is Florian?" she asked softly. 

As the queen descended to them over a living wooden staircase, Jinx let the dragon leather sack slide from her shoulders. "He´s been taken captive by the Empire, milady. I´m sorry." 

An expression of intense sorrow crossed Fay´s face like a shadow. She lowered her head. When she looked at them again she seemed to have composed herself. She reached Jinx and took the sack. 

"You may rest here. I will restore the artefact for you." 

"Thank you, milady." 

As they walked across the thick grass towards some hammock-filled arbors to get ready for the night, Jinx felt her legs grow weak, but her heart jumped and soared far above her. 

Their journey had come to an end. 

And another was about to begin.

**General: So we found a new use for elves. Use them then leave them for the enemy to deal with.**

**Velvet: The Dark Tower…**

**General: I remember the stories. Lord Vessperion and Mistress Rose**

**Velvet: A pity he didn't have the sense to choose me over my sister.**

**General: Be careful would you, don't insult the previous Overlord like that.**

**Velvet leaves**

**General: She still creeps me out. Okay, please review people.**


	27. All is Fair in Love and War Part 1

**General Maraxus is sent flying into the abyss**

**General: I'm sorry! I swear I'm sorry!**

**A rope wraps itself around his leg and dangles him from the rocks**

**Jinx: Where the heck have you been? You should've updated this ages ago.**

**General: I've been really busy, now pull me in woman.**

**Jinx: I'll think about it. Now do the disclaimer.**

**General: I do not own this story. It belongs to the lovely Sunjinjo, she can be found on deviantart. She created the OCs and I do not claim her creations in anyway shape or form.**

**All is Fair in Love and War Part 1**

Night. 

A darkened arbor, speckled with floating lights of blue, green and gold, but lighting up as a slender figure entered. The lights glowed more brightly in reaction to her presence.  
>It was midnight as Fay placed the dragon leather sack onto the ground beneath a protecting canopy and spread her hands. In answer, all the shards flew out, up, and started circling around each other slowly. <p>

The Queen moved her fingers, took a deep breath and softly started to sing. Her voice formed ancient words, describing how the Heart would be healed and in which ways the shards should fit together. The nacre fragments tumbled around each other, turned, and then started fitting together by themselves. Each time a new shard joined the healing mass a clear tone resounded, blending into Fay's song, and the air became increasingly bright under the canopy, as if dawn was breaking. 

Lower, in the arbors, two Minions looked up at the flickering light, their ears folded back uneasily. It was strange to have help from this direction. But at the same time they felt the huge amount of power now flowing to their side. 

Then that feeling ebbed away. 

Drip and Simmer exchanged glances. "What was that?" the blue mumbled. 

"Something went wrong? Feels like Heart less strong…" 

"Well, it's only starting. It'll be alright." Drip tiredly blinked his large eyes. "I don't know what you're doing, but I'm off to bed. I'll keep my fingers crossed for everything to work out tomorrow..." 

Simmer nodded. "Me too. Sleep well." 

And beneath the dark leaves Fay ended her song, to lower the now perfect, round Tower Heart to the ground. The pearl was glowing weakly now, and shapes slid across the surface. For the briefest moment narrow eyes passed by, staring at the Queen in fury. Fay calmly looked back, a slightly brighter glow in her own eyes. She seemed to emanate more power than before. 

Fay had decided. 

She turned away as the eyes disappeared and pressed her back against one of the arbor's living wooden pillars. A slender hand slid over her face. "Florian," she sighed, her eyes closed and her face clouded with sorrow. "I'm sorry." She opened her eyes and stared on into nothingness. "I hope I can comfort your spirit by trying to fulfil your wish. Sayron of the Netherworld will not be my ally this easily. His power is mine now, and tomorrow I will test him. Florian, I hope light magic will win this battle, if we fight with the power of the Heart on our side..."

The night slid past, and eventually the floating lights lit up brighter and brighter, until there was enough light to wake up Sayron and the horde. At least, the first Minions – the rest awoke because they noisily fell out of their hammocks and saw what the elves had left for them. There were large bowls of fruit and flowers standing at the arbors. Everyone was hungry, but the Minions didn't really enjoy their meals. 

As Kniff was still tastelessly munching away at his fruit and Jinx was looking at him with an amused grin, two elves in light, woven robes appeared. Between hem walked Queen Fay, so lightly she seemed to float. The other two fell away in her glow. They stayed behind and positioned themselves outside the arbor. 

Sayron briefly lowered his head. "Milady." 

"Lord Sayron." She paused. "I have assembled the artefact." She gestured to behind her, where the pearl was slowly lowered. "But it seems to have lost much of its power." 

Sayron frowned. "It's true much of the magic had leaked out and caused the Wasteland..."

He turned to his horde. Jinx looked at him questioningly. "What do we do now, Lord?" 

"We need the Heart," Fay answered for him. "The Empire seeks to force their way into the Last Sanctuary and from there into your realm, Sayron. But this can strike a decisive blow. I give you permission to charge the Heart with energy from my four Shrines in the lower caves. This will mean the destruction of the creatures that live there." She lowered her eyes. "Grave decisions must be made during a time of war, but I pray they will not suffer for too long. I also hope this object is worth Florian's life. I fear he is not long for this world, especially if he is put in Solarius' vile Arena." 

Sayron wanted to say something, but Gnarl beat him to it. _"Couldn't happen to a nicer chap!"_

Fay looked up at Sayron with a piercing, sky-blue gaze. "He was my brother, Scourge." 

Sayron's eyes widened. Jinx abruptly looked up from her bowl and Kniff's jaw dropped. 

Fay frowned. "Go now! We don't have long before they break through!" 

Sayron blinked his eyes. "...Certainly, milady." He turned to the horde. "Come on! We have no time to lose!" 

As he departed with large strides, his Minions hurriedly scurrying after him, Fay stepped back and folded her hands. She didn't feel good about this, but the loss of Florian gave her the feeling she shouldn't try to face the Empire with the help of someone who'd crush light magic, too, if given the chance. 

As she looked after the group, her eyes met those of the black-haired girl as she looked back. A shiver ran across Fay's back. 

Then they disappeared down a flight of stairs, and the Queen was unable to retract her decision.

The wooden stairs slowly descended between overgrown branches and trunks soaring up from the forest floor, dozens of meters lower. Everywhere around them resounded the cries of birds and beasts, some of them familiar from Everlight, but others unknown and unheard until now. At times, strange music played on unseen flutes wove its way between the leaves, swelling and dying away in waves. 

Five Minions – the four browns and Scythe – had taken the Heart on their shoulders and now clumsily carried it along. Jinx walked with them and made sure the smooth, dark pearl didn't slip from their hands. She briefly laid her own hand on it; the surface was warm, even if little power seemed to be left in the legendary relic. 

Around them the dark leaves dimmed the glow of the floating lights. But on a platform below them, a new light suddenly flared. 

Sayron increased his pace as he saw what it was. A golden, red, green and blue glow – Minion gates. 

"Well," Jinx muttered as she came to stand next to him. "The Queen doesn't go easy on us, but she's not unfriendly." 

As the Minions tumbled from their gates to form a horde that still wasn't big, but much stronger, Sayron looked around and his eyes lingered on a hanging basket of sorts, just off the edge of the platform. "An elevator," he spoke. "That'll take us to the lower caves." 

It took a while for all the Minions to get down, but eventually the entire horde stood at the bottom of the cave, below various layers of foliage. The soil was still covered in dark, blue-green grass, but the lights were less bright and there was a sort of constant gloom around them. The cave walls were closer to the path here, and overgrown branches curved towards the travellers from the walls, creating a claustrophobic atmosphere. Jinx was on her guard the entire time. She didn't trust this Sanctuary at all. She was sure of the fact eyes were watching them at all times, the black, glistening eyes of fairies and gnomes and who knew what else. For just a moment, she felt a sting of pain in her arm where a mermaid had once bitten her. Light magic had teeth. 

The path through the narrow cave took them further, below dark canopies continuing upwards for hundreds of meters. After a while however, the surroundings lit up. Sayron pushed aside a thick mass of leaves with his sword. For a moment he stood there as if mesmerized, and then he stepped through. The horde was quick to follow, in case something dangerous awaited them on the other side. 

That wasn't the case, at least not at first sight. Behind the leaves the ground fell away and the overgrown cave bottom plunged down into the deep, creating a steep cliff. The path did continue, in the shape of a protruding wooden bridge ending in a round platform, and in the middle of that was a magnificently crafted pedestal of glowing blue crystal. Irregular, glistening peaks fanned out from the top. The lights in the air swirled around it, attracted as if by a magnet. The Shrine was clearly vibrating with magic. 

Sayron smiled, stepped across the bridge and gestured to the Minions to bring the Heart closer. Then he knelt, placed his left hand on the crystal and his right on the Heart. He closed his eyes. Bright flows of energy started running from the first to the second via his tattooed arms. The magic writhed across the surface of the Heart like water, and then was absorbed by it. Deep within the core something flared and started pulsating, like an actual heartbeat. 

"It's working," Jinx whispered excitedly. 

The Shrine's crystal visibly lost its glow, and the lights drifted away from it. Eventually cracks appeared across the glistening surface, all the blue flowed away and it became grey as a common pebble. Some parts broke off. Not long afterwards Sayron took his hands off the two relics and stood up. He seemed unaffected. 

"Lord," Jinx spoke carefully. "I wonder what Fay thinks of this." 

The Overlord looked up. "It's damaging her Sanctuary, and it's a decision I wouldn't have made, but I'm not complaining." He shifted his weight. The platform creaked. 

The Minions now taking the Heart on their shoulders again looked up, sudden panic in their glowing eyes. Kniff looked down, and his eyes followed the lines of spontaneous decay and rot swiftly spreading over the platform and the bridge, the holes falling into them... 

"It's damaging the Sanctuary," Sayron repeated, his eyes wide and a terrible understanding in his voice. "Run..." 

But he hadn't even said it before the bridge and the platform, so very high above the nearest solid ground, collapsed completely.

**(NORDBERG)**

The city now counted a dozen of new inhabitants. That dozen had briefly called the Wasteland their home, but they seemed to be in relatively good health, despite their recent predicaments as their fellow travellers had been mutated. 

Now the five men and four women tried to fit in with the Nordbergians and Ruborians, and the three surviving children were playing together with the others without much trouble. Of course they were being watched closely, and everyone knew where they'd come from, but they didn't show any signs of the magical plague. The dust of the past few days settled.  
>Seffec could take a breather. <p>

Or at least, he could practise his breathing as he readied himself for the battle that would, sooner or later but inevitably, break loose. He knew Sayron wouldn't take long before he was ready to give the command, gather the armies, and march to Arcadiopolis. 

The young Ruborian let his dark, rough hands slide along the blade of his scimitar, breathed out and swept it around in a practised movement, in the shelter of his home. The furniture was scarce, but that was a good thing – Seffec was training so wildly at times he'd have demolished it already. 

The gleaming blade came to a halt and returned calmly to the flat, rough hand. The Ruborian breathed in again, his eyes briefly closed. 

There was a knock at the door. 

Seffec opened his eyes. He sheathed his sword and walked over to the door. 

It was Omari, and he was dressed and packed as if he was about to make a long journey.

Seffec raised his eyebrows. "_Bahi_, Omari. Where are you going?" 

The mage briefly bowed his head. Seffec stepped aside and let him in. "_Fahid_, I am indeed departing. Ruboria is calling for me." 

"What...?" 

Omari's eyes were warm and brown as always, and he smiled as he repeated it: "Ruboria is calling for me, Seffec. I have to go there." 

Seffec shook his head. "No, we need you here…" 

The mage placed his hands on his leader's shoulders. "I will be back in time. I promise you." 

"What are you going to do?" 

Omari's eyes wandered outside, through the window. "I will go there to die..." His eyes returned to Seffec. "...or, if the gods allow it, to ask an audience with one of the monarchs of the desert." 

Seffec's eyes widened. "Omari, you're not strong enough!" 

"My abilities have grown since I left the Empire's shield, _fahid_. I believe I can make it back in time, and I believe I am able to do this. I now ask your permission." 

Seffec shut his mouth and looked away. 

"Please, _fahid_." 

"...Very well." 

Omari bowed in relief. "Thank you." He hoisted his travelling bag higher up his shoulder. "I will not disappoint you." 

With those words he turned and walked out of the door. Seffec remained standing in the entrance and stared after him until the mage disappeared around a corner. 

**(SANCTUARY)**  
>There was movement. <p>

Glistening eyes remained closed, but the fiery creature frowned, still half unconscious. 

There was movement, and there were chittering voices. This caused him to start digging into his memory... 

_Gnomes._

Simmer´s eyes flew open and his inner fire flared. He stared around him wildly, and started struggling after a fraction of a second. 

Indeed. Gnomes. Everywhere. 

The red Minion thrashed with his arms and shoulders, but realized he was still moving along at a steady pace. 

...They were _under_ him... 

His hands glowed sharply and some of the gnomes carrying him squeaked shrilly, but the swarm didn´t slow down. Everywhere around the red Minion the others went through the same – browns, reds, greens and blues – and the chittering crowd streamed across the dark grass, below writhing branches and through the humming gloom towards certain points. Burrows. 

Simmer´s vision cleared, and he could now see where the humming sound came from. Above the gnomes, above the Minions, hovered round bodies on glistening wings. Fairies. Every time when a Minion was about to wake up from his hypnosis, a fairy came hanging above him, pushing him back into their magical haze. 

Simmer growled savagely and tried to pull his hands free as the same happened to him. The fairy laughed a tinkling laugh and pressed her two-fingered hand to his forehead. 

The last the red Minion saw as he tried to yank his head to the side was a swift, elongated and slightly glowing form darting away from the burrow the gnomes were taking him to.

Then that, too, faded into golden glistenings and chittering laughter.

"Ugh." 

Lord Sayron hoisted his upper body up and painfully wrenched open his eyes. Fallen branches and leaves slid off him, and small creatures shot away into the undergrowth. Some lingered at the smaller form lying a little further, but as he strode towards it they quickly fled from his shadow. 

"Jinx?" 

He grabbed her shoulder and rolled her over. Glistening pollen slid from her hair. Her breathing was regular, but she didn´t wake up. 

"Jinx." Sayron frowned and a tone of impatience crept into his voice. He couldn´t use this. The Minions and the Heart were gone. The only one he did have left would be a whole lot more useful if she´d be conscious. 

He looked up at the hole they´d fallen into the canopy. Fay was somewhere up there, high above them in the upper caves. Did she know this? Did the Queen _know_ what was down here? Had she made it so hard for them on purpose? 

"Of course," Sayron growled. "She´s not going to surrender this easily. I was naive..." He swore and hoisted Jinx onto his broad shoulders. Her arms, legs and ropes limply dangled down on both sides of his chest. 

The ropes. Maybe she´d tried to use them and disturbed something on their way down... something which had punished her for doing so. 

Glistening pollen... 

Maybe not. He´d heard about the things fairies could do. Sayron wiped the last golden dust from his horde leader´s face, but there was no reaction. He´d have to be patient. His next priorities were the Minions and the Heart. He started walking – hopefully they weren´t very far.

"Why didn´t you allow the fairies to subdue him, milady?" 

Fay looked up from the smooth pool of water in which she kept an eye on Sayron´s progress. She met the eyes of her companion, one of the high elves staying with her in the top of the Sanctuary. 

"I´m testing him, Alborn. I want to see whether he survives. Without cheating directly." 

"But he´s supposed to die..." 

"If he lives... you know the dryads and our own warriors won´t hold the entrance for long. More legions gather with the hour. I don´t know how, but the Empire is about to break through and if Lord Sayron comes back up alive, we may conclude he is impossible to overcome and I wouldn´t mind to let his sword join ours. It is up to the Lord of the Deep now, not me." 

The high elf briefly bowed his head. "As you wish." 

Fay turned back to the pool. It was impossible to say what was going through her head.

A constant growl woke him. It took him several seconds to realize it was coming from his own throat, and there was much more noise around him – high screams and chittering, the crackling of flames and a sound as if clawed feet dug deep into the earth. There also was a peculiar, repetitive sound resembling that of a creaking door. 

Kniff hoisted himself up and thoughtlessly wiped a golden dust off his chest and shoulders. As a fairy flew towards him he´d run her through with his dagger in an instant. All the time his teeth had been bared in a full display of threat – he wasn´t about to let himself be hypnotized for one more second. 

It wasn´t probably that´d happen. The gnomes and fairies had broken formation and now flitted around in chaos, diving into the burrows or fleeing from them. The reason was all too clear. 

The brown Minion joined his groggy kin and stared at the newcomers with wide eyes. There were only a few of them, but mainly the reds had eyes for nothing else. 

Some long, lizard-like creatures, low on their feet, with a vividly scarlet, scaled skin which glowed at their throats and stomachs. From their cheeks, brow ridges and backs sprouted bony spikes. Their feet had clawed toes with which they dug the gnomes out effortlessly. It seemed to be a regular foraging method – these creatures were the natural enemies of the gnomes in this Sanctuary. 

They didn´t seem to view the Minions as a threat. As Hoarse and Simmer carefully approached them, however, they were wildly hissed at as the salamanders opened a huge and fiery maw and narrowed their pupils to slits. With a final flick of their tails they disappeared into the undergrowth, and a moment later the scorched leaves closed behind them. They left behind a fleeing group of gnomes and fairies. 

Kniff blinked his eyes. He wasn´t sure of what he´d just seen, but it was clear to him this wouldn´t be the last time they´d encounter these creatures. "Deeper," he mumbled.

"Deeper below the Tower the Heart is beating." He looked up and raised his ears. "Heart...!"  
>That last word reached Aches, just scrambling to his feet and pushing the last chittering gnomes off him. The larger Minion hadn´t even opened his eyes before the first command had left his mouth. "Search everywhere! Find it!" <p>

Without thinking, the browns first scattered to the far sides of the clearing. The three other clans followed. It was Minc who yelled out after a few minutes – his digging claws had uncovered a nacre surface. The gnomes had tried to take the Heart with them into one of their burrows. 

The pearl was brought back to the centre of the horde. 

As Aches was about to take his place at the head of the browns, a mighty cracking resounded through the undergrowth. A few seconds and some swearing later Sayron hacked his way out and struggled towards the Minions. He let his eyes slide over the clearing – fleeing gnomes, scorch marks in the grass, the drawn weapons of the Minions – and smiled broadly. On his shoulders Jinx was still unconscious. 

As Aches let his eyes linger on her his mouth twisted in the beginning of a growl, but he held back. 

_"Ah, there´s your shiny ball thingy!"  
><em> 

Sayron looked up. "Juno?" 

_"Hello, Sire. It seems like the connection isn´t very stable down there. If you stay close to the Heart however, things should run smoothly."_

"I´m trying," the Overlord ensured him dryly. 

_"It looks like it´s going to be really shiny,"_ Juno went on. _"I´d be able to use it as my throne and sit on top of it like a queen!"_

_"Think you´d look much better under it,"_ Kelda remarked. 

_"...Anyway, Sire, you´d best be off to the next Shrine. The Heart is far from fully charged!"  
><em> 

Sayron nodded with a crooked grin and hoisted Jinx a little higher up his shoulders. "You´re right. Minions!" 

Kniff exchanged glances with Simmer as he realized their new course led directly after the salamanders. The red nodded, with wide eyes and a huge grin. 

Goudvis was possibly grinning even wider, but cleared his face as he saw Fever´s expression.

Shortly after they´d left the clearing, the canopy opened up above them. Sayron had free sight, all those hundreds of meters up, and he swallowed as he realized just how large the Sanctuary really was. He saw canopies in many shades of green, curving down to him like a funnel. There clearly were many levels, just like in the Netherworld, every one of them filled with magical life which was ceaselessly whistling, chittering and singing. Somewhere the deep call of an unicorn resounded. He could swear he saw a huge leaf which could only belong to a dryad, fluttering like an enormous wing. The floating lights, brighter as they drifted higher, whirled through the air like calm, wind-carried snow. Soft voices muttered faint words, and faded as he strode on and the leaves once again obscured everything. 

He went through what exactly he knew about light magic. It was one of the most common forms of magic, blooming into all kinds of creatures everywhere in the world, and kept together by the elves. His ancestors had often tried to exterminate them for that – with Lady Synn as their most striking example, being an elf herself – and his own father had slain the former elven king, Oberon Greenhaze, in the Old Forest of Evernight. But he didn´t even know whether or not Fay was related to him. However, Florian called himself Greenheart... maybe those two really were his children that fled across the sea and to Everlight. If that was true, he and Fay were connected in a strange way. 

Something on his right made a sound like a creaking door. The undergrowth rustled, and a fiery glow was cast upon a rock face close by. A mumbling went through the horde. 

"Gnarl... what is that?" 

_"I don´t know, Sire. I´d swear I recognize that sound..."_ The advisor fell silent as it resounded again, but Sayron wasn´t quick enough to root out the source. _"I think you should be on your guard."_

He had barely said it before the Overlord saw something that made him forget about the strange apparitions. Far ahead, as if through a tunnel of leaves, the floating lights grew more fiery in colour, and at the end of the path they were red like floating embers. 

At the end of the path they whirled around a huge scarlet crystal on a pedestal of red marble. 

_"...Well, you know what to do,"_ Gnarl broke the silence. _"Be careful this time... I think we´re supposed to go even deeper, but try not to break anything and not to lose the Heart, either."_

"I´ll try my best," the Overlord replied as he stepped forward and placed his hands onto the two magical objects once again. He raised his shoulders, so he wouldn´t lose Jinx as he spread his arms. 

The energy was as red as the Shrine this time. Sayron noticed a strange heat rising from below him, too, as if there was a fire burning deep within the Sanctuary. 

Not for the first time he wondered exactly where Fay was sending him. Gnomes probably weren´t the only obstacle he´d have to overcome to truly become her ally. 

The crystal slowly lost its fiery glow and colour, and Sayron beheld it with some concern. As the last glimpse of colour had vanished he pulled his hands off it. He straightened out and closed his eyes, his hands gripping Jinx´ limp body. 

The cracking was no surprise. During the fall the Overlord tried to brace himself for the impact, but nothing had been able to prepare him for that which awaited them below.

Rock. Fire. Heat. Whirling embers like in the heart of the forge. 

And everywhere, along every available inch of the curving walls, the creatures. 

They were red-hot, with long bodies and slender tails, claws granting them an infallible grip on the rocks, glowing eyes with slits for pupils, and more often than not a huge, hissing open mouth emanating the same blazing white glow. The sounds like creaking doors were gone. This was a display of threat. 

Sayron scrambled up and tried to shake off the dizziness as quickly as possible. He hadn´t landed softly, and the same applied to most of the Minions. He saw the blues were busy healing each other and the others already, but even as he watched some browns were dragged into the flames by the salamanders, where they caught fire screaming and fighting and were quickly devoured by some of the lizards. They clearly liked their meals cooked. 

The cave did have an exit, but the horde was separated from it by a ring of fire. The reds coming closer were swiftly cut off by the lightning-fast salamanders, who didn´t need the ground to move around. Like the reds themselves, they seemed to have an incredibly agile talent for climbing. 

Simmer was eye to eye with one of the hissing fire lizards, but didn´t back down. He kept staring at the beast, his jaws clenched, and tried to break the circle of fire by quenching the flames with his own magical control of fire. He didn´t succeed. The salamander kept snarling and biting at him and drove him further and further backwards. Beyond the fire, however, he did catch a glimpse of some elves rolling something across the rock that made every alarm bell ring like mad. 

"Master! Elves have Heart!" 

"Quick – we must take it to the others," the Minion caught. "Leave him, he won´t survive them anyway!" 

Sayron heard it too, immediately left Jinx behind and rushed at the salamanders with a bared sword. 

The first he let his eye fall upon avoided him with ease and flew up the wall. Sayron turned with a fluent motion and tried to take on a second, but then felt the armour on his back heat up to a red-hot agony. At the same time, a roar of flame reached his ears. 

The creatures could actually breathe fire. 

The Overlord tore the burning sash off his shoulders and swept his sword around to his first target. The salamander coughed and seemed to be unable to keep up his flame. The maw was still agape, and Sayron immediately rammed his sword in. 

The salamander hiccupped once. Then his eyes bulged and flashed red. 

Instinctively, Sayron dove away and dragged a few Minions with him. That turned out to be a good move, for a heartbeat later the fire lizard exploded in a rain of glowing blood and entrails. 

For a moment, the Overlord stood there staring. Then he felt the pain of the burns on his back. He believed the skin had slightly melted to his armour. 

The blues could heal it later. Occupational hazard. 

He fought on like a demon, because the one thing enraging him even further than the pain was the fact the elves had taken the Heart. They clearly didn´t know they were supposed to let him pass... 

A shade of doubt stirred within him, but he couldn´t think about it long, because the salamanders were attacking him from all sides. His sword didn´t slice through their tough scales easily, and he could barely shield himself from their flames – he was forced to pump everything he had into his lightning shields. 

He had help, however. The reds, agile and fireproof as they were, rapidly sped after the salamanders and clasped their entire bodies around the jaws and legs, so the lizards lost their grip on the rock and landed on the ground in the middle of the cave, rolling around fighting and hissing in a fiery embrace with their Minion-mirror images. Sayron shielded his face and body as well as he could as Hoarse singlehandedly made the first lizards blow up and scrambled up with streaming eyes. The entire cave was filling up with smoke. 

Across the entire surface of the walls, salamanders and reds were fighting now. On the ground the browns and greens finished the ones that fell, and Minc aimed his bow straight up and made sure some lizards exploded while still on the ceiling. 

Some of the red clan just stood there, staring up from the ground with a deep sadness in their eyes, and Sayron was irresistibly reminded of the time he´d been forced to let the greens fight the spiders. 

_Would these creatures..._

But in a whirlwind of flying fireballs and tongues of flame, hissing and growling Minions and salamanders, and defending himself and the horde against one of the most ferocious opponents they´d faced thus far, Sayron barely had time to finish even one thought. He dragged Jinx from the ground and jumped back as Fever, entangled with a large salamander, thudded down in front of them. The Minion bit down into the lizard´s throat and then ripped the wound open with his claws. The salamander exploded just as Sayron rolled away across the ground, shielding his unconscious horde leader as well as he could. He cursed wildly and stabbed around with his sword as the lizards attacked him before he could get up. "Jinx! If this doesn´t wake you up, I don´t know what will!" 

He hoisted himself up and coughed – the smoke started to give him difficulty breathing. The Minions still ran under it for the most part, so they had it easier. But quite a few of them lay dead on the ground, or spread over it – the explosions were strong enough to blow their bodies apart. 

A deep rumbling coursed through the rock and the solid ground below Sayron´s feet. The stalactites on the ceiling rattled. The Overlord froze, his sword raised high and covered in glowing blood. The salamanders fell silent. 

Then, as sudden as it had started, the sound died away. 

And the salamanders darted out of the cave as one. 

"Ooo, Master, this doesn´t feel good," Gnarl said cautiously, and one didn´t need to see him to know his ears now lay folded tightly against his head.

Sayron wished he could do the same. "I agree," he answered nervously. He slightly relaxed his sword hand, but didn´t sheathe his weapon. 

The first reds were already sprinting for the still intact ring of fire and started quenching the flames. A moment later Sayron could step through, but he was tense like a bowstring.

"He´s awake, milady." 

Fay nodded lightly. She was a bit paler than usual, and though it wasn´t visible, a nervous feeling had nestled in her stomach. This was the most powerful creature they had, and it wasn´t even really theirs. The Lord of the Deep hadn´t been born from light magic, but from fire and shadow – his kind had lived here long before the elves made it their Sanctuary, and no one had ever dared to go deep enough to see where they really came from. 

If the Overlord defeated him, she didn´t know what to do against him. Then she could do nothing else but surrender to him. 

The Queen looked up. Here, in the top of the Sanctuary, she could see parts of the rock that was their ceiling. She couldn´t yet see or hear the soldiers, but she knew they were there, and they´d break through. They didn´t have much time left.

"I hope we´re still on time!" Drip panted as he sprinted after Sayron, in the direction where both the elves and the salamanders had disappeared. His Master was still carrying Jinx, but ran with such a speed the Minions could barely keep up. The Heart had given him a desperate drive. The group flew through the tunnel leading away from the cave they´d fallen into and even deeper into the Sanctuary. Despite the enormous depth, plants started to overgrow the tunnel walls again, plants with dark, leathery leaves resembling those in the darkest parts of Everlight. And not much later the Overlord and his followers ran beneath the vaults of the Sanctuary again, hundreds of feet above. Mossy tree trunks shot up on all sides, and after a while a great ravine opened up on their left, layers and layers of canopies obscuring the full depth. 

"Oh no, it´s him again!" 

Sayron looked up sharply. Ahead, on the edge of the ravine, hung a flower-covered elevator, like the light platform that´d taken them down from the upper caves. This elevator, however, seemed intended to take the elves standing on it back up. And not only them – they had the Heart with them. 

The only reason the elves, with their head start, hadn´t taken the pearl to Fay yet was the fact they were already being attacked without any effort from Sayron´s part. The salamanders had reached them first, and two of them hung on to the rock face and tried to burn through the ropes holding the elevator up. Others hung lower and were practically drooling. It was clear the fire lizards weren´t exactly on the side of light magic. Sayron smiled involuntarily and slowed his pace. Two ropes already hung down, frayed and limp. The platform wobbled with every movement of the ones standing on it. 

"It´s ours, man, we found it!" one of the elves complained, a skinny type with light brown hair and scorch marks on his leafy clothes. 

"And we´re not going to let you use it to destroy the Shrines and the pretty creatures!" 

Sayron came to a halt directly below the elevator. "Oh, I did think so," he grinned. "Not only does your Queen give you orders to let me pass, I´m going to encourage you for a bit, too." He nodded to Hoarse and the other reds. Some thrown fireballs joined the salamanders´ attempts, and they were aimed well – another rope snapped, and the elevator swung to the side. The elves just managed to hold on to the Heart, but Sayron outstretched his arms to catch it – and a new fireball burned through the last rope. The elevator and the elves fell and bounced off the edge, into the ravine. Sayron just caught the pearl and then maliciously stepped on the fingers of an elf trying to pull himself up. He slid away screaming. 

Groaning with the effort, the Overlord gave the Heart back to the Minions and then looked up at the salamanders. They blinked back from the walls. Some of them hissed and spat flames at him, but they didn´t even come close and were clearly meant as nothing more than a threat. 

A deep rumbling again coursed through the rock. Now there seemed to be a tone in it, however, low and sonorous. And Sayron suddenly was very certain something living, something _enormous_ and living, was making that sound. 

The salamanders cast a final glance at Sayron and then sprinted into the ravine across the walls. Their glowing bodies disappeared into the distant depth. 

Sayron stared after them for a moment, but then turned back to the Heart. "...Well..." he started. "Our next goal still is the Shrine. Two more to go." 

_"Right you are, Sire,"_ Gnarl agreed, but he didn´t sound at ease.  
>They continued their journey along the ravine. In some places the path was so narrow they had to edge their way along with their backs pressed against the wall, and even that wasn´t easy when branches grew over it and they had to press their faces fully into the leaves – or thorns. Waterfalls rushed down into the depths along and across the path, and every now and then swarms of colourful birds shot away from a higher level, soaring over the lower parts. Sayron knew they had to be about half a kilometre below the surface, but he felt as if he was hundreds of meters above the ground – the mere view was enough. Shafts of light streamed down through the gigantic cave, and the lights in the air twinkled like stars.<br>And then they suddenly twinkled an emerald green, and around a magnificent crystal with many points reaching up, far ahead beneath the gloom of a tight canopy. 

They´d found the third Shrine, and like the first two, this one was also standing on a round, wooden platform. Sayron briefly closed his eyes. He knew what was coming. 

Despite that, he still knelt down and prepared to transfer the energy to the Heart. As the power flowed over the pearl shone brighter than ever, and Sayron smiled – soon, very soon, he´d have the power his father once held, and it wouldn´t matter what light magic or the Empire threw at him; he´d be ready for it! 

That thought was enough for him not to jump as the platform rotted away from beneath his feet. But he couldn´t prevent swearing the lungs from his body because of what came next. 

It was no innocent, short fall to a lower cave or canopy this time. This time a maw of darkness opened up below him and the horde, and as they fell they landed on hard, slippery rock – black and gleaming, and eerily familiar. This looked like Netherworldly rock. 

As they landed Sayron and the Minions immediately lost their grip on the surface and slid away, down and forward, as if on a hellish toboggan. A sharp turn made Sayron lose Jinx, and after some other wild twists he´d lost his grasp of above and below as well. The light came in flashes through openings in the tunnel wall, and the rest of the time everything was pitch black. 

Then there was open air. 

And then there was water. Lots of water.

Golden glistenings slowly started to dissolve. The rains of stars before her eyes disappeared in complicated patterns and spirals as something new streamed into her nose, mouth and eventually her lungs, and replaced the hypnotic, intoxicating magic. She could see clearly again... 

...too bad she couldn´t breathe. 

Jinx realized she was suffocating. That which cleared the pixie dust from her system... was water. Deep, dark water. 

_Oh no. Not again._

She wildly kicked her legs and tried to move her powerless arms. Slowly, very slowly, she rose through the undulating gloom. 

Her head broke the calm surface. 

_Where am I?_

It seemed like a lake of ink, quiet and dark, but rippling and waving as more Minions came up. Blues with lifeless reds in their arms started swimming to a nearby shore to bring them back to life there. Terrified browns and greens clawed themselves after them, partly led by Scabies, the only brown Minion truly capable of swimming. 

Shafts of dim light and the floating lights made the cave more clear. The dark walls were scarcely overgrown with ferns and seemed to go on forever, to the distant ceiling they´d fallen out of. 

The hole they´d fallen out of wasn´t the only one. The walls were full of them. Some cavities were too small even for Minions. Others were so large five trolls could easily stand on top of each other in them. 

"Jinx!" 

She looked around. Sayron swam towards her with large strokes. "You´re awake," he sputtered. "Finally..." 

She tried to talk, but didn´t succeed and spent the first few seconds coughing. "Pixie dust," she eventually managed. "They sprayed it into my nose and mouth, I´ve inhaled it, I think. Couldn´t wake up." 

"The water flushed it out," the Overlord understood. He looked at her sideways. "Be more careful next time, will y–" 

A deep snort, so loud it made the walls shiver and the water ripple, broke off his words. In the very largest cave in the basalt walls a dull, red glow flared. 

Sayron´s eyes paled as he stared up at the opening. The Minions stopped hoisting themselves and each other onto the shore. 

A head appeared. Sayron was fooled by the distance for a moment, but as he realised how big the maw was, how long the bony spines were, and how enormous the _entire_ monster had to be, he felt his heart drop. 

Scales, as red as those of the small salamanders, covered the pointed snout and circled the great, narrow golden eyes below the horns on the broad brow ridges. Slit pupils dilated to adapt to the gloom and see what was splashing around down in the lake. The Lord of the Deep snorted again, and flames flickered in his nostrils. 

Then he opened his maw and exhaled, and the air caught fire. 

Jinx screamed and shielded her face with her arms as every floating light turned into a fireball, the walls lit up so brightly she could feel her retinas burning, and everything around her waved and twisted in the monstrous, scorching heat the gigantic salamander was exhaling. She kicked herself underwater, but even there she could feel the fire warming the entire lake. When the stream of flames stopped, afterimages flickered and danced behind her eyes. 

She resurfaced, just in time to see the King hoisting himself out of the cave with improbably fast movements and staring at them from the wall. The golden eyes stayed focused on them as the enormous beast climbed to the shore and lowered himself to it. The Minions there spurted out of the way and almost jumped back into the water in some cases. Most of the blues actually did so and remained waiting just below the surface. The Salamander King opened his glowing maw and uttered a strange sound. A stream of flames curved up to the ceiling, and when it stopped little pinpricks of light remained – the small salamanders joined in. 

The King hiccupped again. Sayron ignored his hammering heart for a moment and narrowed his eyes. "He doesn´t attack the Minions... why? It seems like he´s got something in his mouth..." 

Then the King opened his maw straight at them and he saw the nacre, curved surface deep within the fiery throat. Gnarl hissed. _"The Heart! That overgrown gecko tried to swallow our Tower Heart!"_ The advisor growled. _"Sire, you know what to do, but gods, be careful."_

Sayron´s eyes were still yellow, but still he swam to the shore and unsheathed his sword. Jinx followed him, but hung in the water as if hypnotized as she saw Sayron standing there, a small figure, silhouetted against the glow the King was emanating, quivering in his heat. "I don´t want to do this," she caught. "Vessperion, aid me." 

Then the Overlord clenched his free hand into a fist and he flung a great orb of lightning for the golden eyes. The energy hit its target crackling and flashing, and the King backed away, hissing like a forest fire. 

Sayron ducked and ran below the flame as the salamander answered with his own specialty. The giant reptile rapidly turned with him, and the flame furiously chased after the Overlord. Sayron´s lightning shield flickered and was clearly about to give out. 

That was the moment the King was distracted by a purple explosion which rattled his teeth. Sparks whirled down before his eyes, and they weren´t coming from his own fire. He looked up. 

At the same time Jinx let herself fall from the wall and onto his head, ropes flung out to the golden eyes. The arcanium spikes hissed down, but were beaten back as the salamander closed his eyes. He shook his head, but Jinx hit her target nonetheless. As her hands touched his scales, however, she screamed in sudden, unbearable pain – his entire skin burned like a forge fire. She pulled herself loose, losing pieces of skin, and jumped back to the wall. 

A raging tongue of flame pursued her even before she could heal her skin and she was forced to sprint ahead. The King thundered after her, into the deeper, darker caves and lighting them up hellishly as he went. 

Sayron stayed behind, panting – the King seemed to have forgotten about him. Then Gnarl shook him awake. _"This is your chance! No time to let Jinx become the King´s favorite toy! Run, Sire!"  
><em> 

As the Minions gathered around him as quickly as they could and Sayron ran after the monster with a feeling of misplacement, the advisor went on: _"These are the deepest parts, there has to be more water coming down with the waterfalls! Try to lure him into it! If he´s like the reds in more than just colour, that´s our best chance..."  
><em> 

And at the back of the horde, between Soaker and Drip, Goudvis grinned a shark´s grin.

**The General is still hanging by his ankle from the rocks**

**General: I'll be fudged. That is the Salamander King, oh this is going to be a tough fight.**

**Jinx: Have you learned your lesson?**

**General: Yes you enchantingly beautiful girl I have learned my lesson. Now pull me up!**

**Jinx: Promise me you'll never leave it this long to update again?**

**General: Yes I promise.**

**Jinx pulls the General up: Make sure you don't break that promise.**

**General: Please review readers… please. Seriously leave a review or I'll end up back down there.**


	28. All is Fair in Love and War Part 2

**General Maraxus and Gnarl are watching the pool.**

**Maraxus: That is one big fellow.**

**Gnarl: Don't worry. I'm sure they'll be fine.**

**Maraxus: I hope you're right. I've grown quite fond of Jinx. She's certainly come a long way from that little slave girl into a fearsome magical warrior.**

**Gnarl: All credit goes to the wise and imaginative Sunjinjo. She created this story and all the OCs. If you are looking for the original genius of this story go to deviantart.**

**Maraxus: Who are you talking to?**

**Gnarl: The readers.**

**Maraxus: Ah yes those people. Well here's a shoutout to 'tylermech66' for being the only person who reviewed the last chapter, telling me to update more…**

**Gnarl: Serves you right. Anyway, Sunjinjo owns this story and OCs, not this fool beside me.**

**Maraxus: Hurtful…**

**Gnarl: Enjoy. And please review later on if you don't mind.**

**All is Fair in Love and War Part 2**

Jinx was going as fast as she could, groaning with the pain in her hands and arms, but barely granting herself time to heal them. She sprinted along the walls, dodging protrusions and plants, and every now and then she could feel how they were being heated by the flames of the beast pursuing her.  
>Then the rock face shivered beneath her hands. She looked back.<p>

The Salamander King had joined her on the wall; his great head stared at her with an angle now, as his claws crushed the rock in his fury. And with that her problems weren´t at an end; below them the ground was rapidly dropping. Jinx looked down and started; she could see water shimmering in the gloomy depths. She hoped the rest could follow.

But naturally, that worry paled in the light of what was now directly behind her... a gigantic, devouring, fire-breathing gecko growing angrier with the second. Jinx avoided a hissing blast of fire by jumping to the other wall – she was nearly at the cave ceiling, and the walls were close together here.

She heard the voices of the Minions, echoing through the cave. She could envision how the horde was struggling to keep up, but trying to descend down the slope as fast as they could.

Then the King rushed across the ceiling to her wall like an inverted lava flow. Stalactites broke off and fell down, and she could hear the Minions screaming as the boulders came down among them. Jinx clenched her jaws and hissed furiously. "Leave them alone...!"

She looked down to make out the Minions, but didn´t see much else than the yellow pinpricks of their eyes, staring up at her. They were all along the walls of the cave, and between them, the dark water blinked back. 

Water... 

"Jinx!" roared a deep voice that could belong only to Sayron. "Throw him down! Cast him into the water!" 

"How do you want me to do that?" she screamed back, dizzy with the strain, the speed and her pursuer´s heat. She couldn´t keep this up for long... 

...oh. 

She yanked her ropes free and let herself fall. 

The King hissed wildly, his gargantuan maw opened wide like a white-hot gateway to hell, still choking on the Heart. As Jinx hooked on lower on the wall and cast a burst of purple magic at him he shut his mouth and widened his large eyes. And he rushed down, determined to incinerate her.  
>The horde leader stared at the King with narrowed eyes and waited for the very last moment to jump. <p>

"_Jinx!_" 

She jumped, just out of reach of the grabbing front claw. The King thundered on, and a lightning orb of Sayron´s making made sure he lost his grip on the rock. The enormous salamander slid into the shallow water on the uneven, stalagmite-filled bottom of the cave, causing a mighty hissing and billowing clouds of steam. The Minions shielded their faces and many reds flew up the walls to protect themselves from the rising water. 

"Now!" Sayron shouted, his sword raised high as he ran at the salamander. The Minions swarmed after him and started hacking away at the tough scales, but even the monster´s belly was heavily armoured. Sayron screamed in frustration as the King hoisted himself to his feet again, painful and panting, but still with flashing eyes and a fiery breath. The Overlord dived away to avoid a surge of flames and fell out to the neck, but his sword slid off, causing no more damage than two missing scales. The skin beneath was faintly glowing. Jinx jumped away from the swishing tail as the beast turned, and threw her own magic at the weakened spot. The King roared in pain and fury. Then he closed his mouth. Flames ignited in his nostrils. And the look in his eyes told the Overlord it´d be very wise to run now. He dived away as the King inhaled. 

The flame that followed left the rocks glowing red. Sayron scrambled up, glanced behind him once, and ran.

**(UPPER LEVELS)**

"You´ve got trouble, Sayron," the Lady of the Light muttered to herself. The smooth pool showed her images of chaos and fire. The Lord of the Deep was furious, she could feel that. The Overlord had managed to hurt him, and he wasn´t used to the feeling of pain.

Fay smiled without the faintest trace of humour. "...but you´ve also managed to exploit his weakness..." She nodded with some appreciation. 

She couldn´t prevent her smile from growing sincere as she noticed the smaller salamanders making their way down the walls. The pool didn´t emit sound, but she could imagine Sayron and his followers were screaming now...

**(BACK TO THE OVERLORD)**

Chaos. Fire. Hissing maws. Running with burning lungs, but that was always better than staying behind with an entire burning body... 

Between his young, the enraged Salamander King opened his enormous glowing maw and produced a terrible sound which made the rocks quiver. Sayron didn´t look back. Jinx and the Minions flew past him as he sprinted away through the cave as fast as his armour would allow, fiercely hoping a way of escape would present itself soon... 

The small salamanders were much faster than the King, and tongues of flame lashed out towards them from the walls. Sparks burst through the air and cast the cave in dancing shadows. 

Jinx jolted as a familiar voice suddenly cried out, and missed the rock protrusion she´d been aiming for so she fell into the shallow water between the stalagmites. She looked back. There, approaching her very fast, was Kniff. The rat fur around his shoulders and his hat were on fire. "Kniff!" she roared. "Take off the hat! Throw it into the water!" 

The Minion looked at her with a pained look and kept running. As he passed her Jinx tore the hat from his head and cast it down. The fire extinguished with a sizzle, and all that was left were some floating remains. 

"Rather the hat than you," the horde leader spoke as she dragged Kniff along, three salamanders coming at them already. 

There wasn´t much they could do. The salamanders kept streaming in, and with the King at their side to protect them, they were practically invulnerable. Sayron and the horde kept running, attacking behind them every now and then with arrows, swords or magic, but they didn´t manage to significantly damage their attackers. The Overlord furiously hoped for a chance, or deeper water – in these shallows they could do nothing and the King was too cautious to try their earlier attack again.  
>Then the bottom started sloping further down. The water did deepen, and the Minions had difficulty walking – especially the reds, who saw themselves forced to take to the walls. <p>

Then, in the distance, something which made Sayron swear wild and uncontrolled became visible.  
>Before them rose a vertical rock face, impenetrable and impossible to scale for him. A waterfall plunged down along it – the source of all the gently flowing water they´d run through all this time.<br>The Overlord desperately looked between the rapidly approaching King and the waterfall. No chance. The King wouldn´t venture below the waterfall, but it was a dead end to him and the Minions too. It was a death-trap. 

The salamanders drove them towards the end of the cave, slower and slower, as if they were enjoying it. In the enormous golden eyes of the Lord of the Deep showed the fact he´d only kill them if they couldn´t go any further. He was intelligent, Sayron realized, intelligent enough to be able to punish the ones who´d caused him pain. 

Jinx wildly looked around, searching for an escape, but there wasn´t any – at least not for the Minions. She´d probably be caught within a split second as well if she tried to get away across the walls. Her honour kept her from trying – she didn´t want to die a coward. 

Then her back touched the wet wall. Fear engulfed her. Then followed confusion. 

A wall. What happened to the waterfall? 

The Salamander King came very close and almost touched Sayron´s helmet with his snout. At the same moment, Jinx looked up. 

Where the top of the waterfall had been, a gigantic, glistening chunk of ice now clung to the rock wall. The many facets blinked in the fiery light, but despite the heat all salamanders were emanating, it didn´t melt... 

The King opened his gaping maw to incinerate the entire group at once. 

In the split second before that happened Jinx´ eyes shot down to Goudvis. The blue Minion with the black-lined eyes grinned at her with teeth like razors. Jinx heard a creaking, high above her head.  
>The Lord of the Deep blinked his golden eyes in confusion and looked up. Just in time to see how the ice cracked and melted, and the waterfall he´d forgotten in his greed came to life again... <p>

All at once hundreds of litres of water rushed down the wall and squarely hit the great salamander. The cold water streamed over his head and body, exploded into his mouth and scythed his claws from the bottom. He, his young and his attackers were dragged along until the water calmed down, in the shallows between the rising stalagmites. 

The King panted painfully. Water gulped from his maw. His eyes had faded to a dark, dim orange. Around him drifted dead salamanders and red Minions, but those last ones were already being plucked from the water by calmly paddling blues, including Goudvis. 

Sayron climbed to the salamander´s throat via a muscular front leg. There, several scales were still missing, as a result of his first attack. 

The King looked up into the other pair of orange eyes. Then the gargantuan blade struck and his were extinguished forever. 

After that Sayron rushed down and dived behind a rock ridge. The explosion that followed rocked the cave. Everything that was left was the head, the Heart still stuck between the jaws, flung away hundreds of yards. 

**(RUN UPSTAIRS TO FAY AGAIN)**

Fay backed away from her looking pool. She came to a halt against an elegant wooden pillar and closed her eyes, but the image would not fade. 

He´d done it. The Lord of the Deep was dead. Which powers had aided him? She hadn´t foreseen he´d succeed, not with his back against the wall like that, and so quickly… 

There were hidden powers in the Netherworld she hadn´t yet been able to see. 

And she´d see them soon, up very close, she knew that now. 

She opened her eyes and caught the gaze of Alborn, one of the high elves remaining with her.  
>Fay nodded. "We will not resist any longer." <p>

"As you wish, milady." The calmness in his voice was in sharp contrast with the hard look in his eyes, however. 

Then a muted explosion resounded above them. The cave shook, and the wooden pillars creaked. Fay ran to the balustrade and looked out across the entire cave and the winding stairs leading down into it. 

Red cloaks and green tunics. A dead, burning dryad was thrown down from the stairs. Cries of fear rose in the Sanctuary. 

The Empire had broken through.

**(SPRINT DOWNSTAIRS)**

Two groups of Minions strained themselves to pull the King´s jaws apart and free the Heart. The head had been separated from the body, but the pearl was still unreachable. 

Gnarl tutted, half disapproving. _"Shame about the head, would´ve looked good in my rockery next to the petrified succubus… Ah, such a shame… wonderful woman, before the… er… incident,"_ he mused. Then he laughed to himself. _"I have to say, Sire, well done. A few fire-breathing salamanders on our side should send the Empire running!"_ He decided not to think too much about the way the King had been defeated; the gods appeared to be on their side, and he could only be glad of that.

The jaws gave way, with a mighty cracking and the ripping of steaming flesh. The Tower Heart came into sight again, dimly glowing and covered in blazing hot saliva. The Minions fished it from the torn throat. 

In the meantime the smaller salamanders approached the horde, uneasily, but clearly not about to roast the Minions. The reds outstretched their glowing hands and allowed the salamanders to smell them. The clan was beaming, not because of their own glow, but with happiness and disbelief. Jinx watched them with a smile. She knew the reds had been jealous of the greens and their mounts since Everlight. She could imagine how good it must feel to see the salamanders react – they were, especially to the reds, most fitting and maybe even more impressive than the enormous spiders. 

Before her eyes Simmer and Acrid mounted two salamanders and held on to the spines on their backs, uneasily but with wide grins. The rest of the horde was shouting and cheering, and eventually Hoarse and the others climbed on as well. Simmer wildly grinned at Jinx. The horde leader stuck up both thumbs. 

Next to her, Kniff sadly rubbed his head. He was happy to see the reds on their new mounts, but he´d lost something in the fight. He felt naked without his hat, and as Jinx looked down upon him she had to confess he looked different – she´d have to get used to it. "Are you going to get a new one?" she asked. 

Kniff nodded, his ears moving up and down. "Is cold without," he answered jokingly. Jinx grinned – the air in the cave was practically quivering with the heat of the salamanders. 

_"Now, Sire,"_ Gnarl´s voice resounded._ "It´s time to leave. One more Shrine to go... and lots more Empire to crush."_

Sayron looked up and nodded. "You´re right. I think they´re breaking through about now."

**(NETHERWORLD)**

The floating rock docked at the forge. An excited, young red Minion jumped off it and ran down the basalt stairs to the fire pits, where the air trembled with heat and resonated with hammer blows. "Mounts!" he shouted over the noise, almost beside himself with joy. "Master found mounts!" 

"For red clan?" Giblet asked, stepping towards him from his anvil as he pushed up his mask and revealed his yellowy brown eyes.

The red nodded. "Fire salamanders – big, red, fire-breathing! Climb across walls like us!" 

Red Minions left their stations all over the forge and flocked together. They gathered around the messenger, wildly gesturing and asking questions. Giblet hit the nearest anvil with his hammer and raised his voice. "Still need reds in forge! So no matter how many want up... not all at once!" 

A laughter rose and the excitement among the reds subdued slightly. Then Giblet looked to the side. There was a red Minion who wasn´t joining in the celebration. He held a red-hot, half-finished blade in his right hand. That was the only hand he had left; his left arm had been clawed off just past the shoulder joint. The stump had healed with dark, wrinkly skin.

"Sear," Giblet muttered. He remembered the day that Minion had come to him, taken from the upper world horde because Stabbit had taken his arm and his life in a surge of madness. Of course he´d been resurrected, but the Minion could no longer climb, let alone ride a salamander. 

In the forge, he´d served Giblet well. All his fire was now led to one hand, so he could heat the steel, durium and arcanium even better than before. The metal reached new heights of temperature with him, allowing itself to be bent in the most complicated of forms. 

The master forger smiled faintly. _One favour for another,_ he thought to himself. He mentally shoved his big project out of the way for a moment. 

**(SANCTUARY LOWER LEVELS)**

The group started the way back through the submerged cave. The water was slightly higher than when they´d come through here first, and the brown and green Minions lifted their clawed feet high in revulsion. Now and then they looked up to the walls in envy. There the reds proudly darted past on their new mounts; the salamanders obeyed their riders without question, clearly enjoying their warmth. They seemed to strengthen each other with their fire. Sayron smiled; he couldn´t have hoped for a better outcome of the battle. 

The bottom started sloping up, steeper than they remembered. At times they plunged into unseen, deeper pools, and the sharp stalagmites didn´t make the trip easier either, but eventually they reached the point where they´d descended from the first lake. However, the Overlord saw something which he hadn´t seen the first time in his hurry. 

The water still gently flowed with them, from the waterfall to the pile of rubble which separated them from the first lake. But at the foot of the rubble, it was now visible where the water went; a broad, black hole just high enough to allow a Minion in. Sayron briefly bent over, but didn´t see much else than darkness. He started climbing the rubble. 

Jinx halted for a moment and crouched down. She narrowed her eyes. She could just make out that the hole led steeply down, and the walls were just as smooth as the tunnel through which they´d landed in the lake. She frowned. The water gently flowed down, even deeper into the earth. 

She wondered if the Sanctuary was in any way connected to the Netherworld. The rock here very much resembled the basalt there, and the salamanders probably originated somewhere fiery... 

"Something worth thinking about," she muttered with a smile. She rose. The group was already halfway up the rubble. She hurried after them.

**(UPSTAIRS)**

Fay looked on in horror as the men streamed down the stairs and descended into the Sanctuary suspended from ropes. _So many soldiers... how did they ever manage to get them into the Wasteland? It seems as if it has no end._ She clenched her teeth. She was certain now. _The Empire is using magic for their own goals. Solarius, you're a sick man._

She put her slender fingers to her temples and called out into the Sanctuary with her mind. In answer, golden glistening ascended everywhere above the treetops – fairies. They darted to the stairs and the men on it, and almost immediately soldiers started letting go of their ropes, to fall to the forest floor screaming. 

"Go on! They mustn't reach Sayron!" the Queen called out. 

One of the high elves grabbed her arm. "Milady, we have to think of ourselves first!" 

"If the Tower Heart is destroyed we won't have any hope left! The energy of the Shrines is already stored inside it!" She inhaled deeply, trembling. "I see now Sayron is the only one who can truly stand up to Solarius. For our own good, I will become his ally." 

The brown eyes of her advisor filled with horror, but a heartbeat later he bowed his head. "And we will follow." 

Fay smiled sadly. "Thank you." She turned back to the Sanctuary. Two dryads reared up and swung to the soldiers, but they were beaten back and blown to pieces almost immediately – the Empire had brought bombers. Before the Queen's eyes parts of the forest in the first cave were ripped apart and smoking fires ignited. 

"Bring the elevators down to the salamander lake," she demanded in a harsh voice. "Help him get to the last Shrine. Then bring him to me as fast as you can." 

The advisor nodded and hurried away.

The group passed along the shores of the lake as fast as possible. In some places there was no shore between the water and the vertical rock wall and the Minions had to try and swim as well as they could. In some cases that resulted in drowning, and the blues had to busy themselves again. All in all they didn't make much progress. 

In the beginning Sayron didn't really see the seriousness and he left the helping to Jinx – he agreed with Gnarl that Minions could drown in amusing ways. Then however, after about fifteen minutes of pegging away at the edges of the lake, a light, overgrown platform descended at the far point of the water. More elevators joined it. "Scourge!" it echoed across the surface. "The Empire is inside! The Queen needs your help!" 

Sayron's eyes became red in an instant. He waved as a sign he'd heard. "I'm coming!" He bent over to the Minions and hoisted them out of the water. In the meantime Jinx and the others ran to the elevators. 

The elves signalled up as everyone had boarded, and the platforms started rising. The salamanders climbed with them across the walls. A moment later they got off in a higher cave, where the floating lights were far brighter and the foliage once again covered everything with a lush carpet of leaves.

The cave was high and broad, like an enormous tunnel gently leading upwards. 

"How far to the top of the Sanctuary?" Sayron asked hurriedly as they departed. 

"Hopefully not too far," one of the elves answered grimly. "The last Shrine is closer." 

After a while the cave ended in a wall and they were forced to climb up along a carved stone staircase. And indeed, after the tunnel which lay hidden higher in the wall, a golden crystal shimmered in front of them. Sayron sank to one knee to transfer the energy already, but was distracted by a sudden explosion. He looked up and his eyes shot to the ceiling. 

There a few men in blue tunics lowered themselves along the overgrown walls. On belts around their waists and over their shoulders hung dozens of small orbs Sayron knew all too well. He narrowed his eyes and turned to Hoarse, next to him on the wall on the claws of his salamander. "Get them." 

"Master," the red leader nodded. He darted away, his horde with him. 

Sayron closed his eyes and started on the Shrine, but smiled as he heard the screams and the hiss of the flames. 

Eventually the golden Shrine crumbled to ashes like the other three. Sayron rose. He glanced at the Heart, and frowned. 

"That was the last of the Shrines..." Gnarl muttered. "But it still doesn´t seem like the Heart's got enough pep yet... Move it, Sire, and head back to Queenie sharpish. Perhaps with the Empire breaking through her roof, there´s more of this Sanctuary she´d like to sacrifice!" As if in answer, more soldiers let themselves fall into the cave, but the reds were ready for them. 

Sayron hoisted the Heart back onto the shoulders of the browns. "Come on," he called out. "Back to the upper caves!" 

And with a rear-guard of fire-breathing lizards the Overlord and his followers rushed up, back to the Lady of the Light.

Their journey was being made harder with every passing minute. As they reached higher caves, more and more signs of the elven population appeared, such as wooden homes and arbors, and as they entered the gigantic trees they arrived in an actual settlement, built on jutting platforms and in hanging baskets. Here, elves ran about everywhere, some armed or busy arming themselves, others in blind panic. And with good reason. Here, too, Imperial soldiers were breaking through, and as the elves mainly used wood for building there was fire everywhere already. Sayron and the elven warriors did what they could, no matter how strange that was for both sides – a fragile pact was being forged. Jinx didn't feel comfortable at all, and that went for the Minions as well. They had no choice, however. 

Gnarl was enjoying himself greatly, despite the direct danger for the warriors of the Netherworld.

_"Ah, chaos,"_ he chuckled. _"Do hurry, Sire, though I find it immensely funny watching this..."_

The further they went, the more soldiers they encountered. Thus far the chaos had been caused by a few bombers, but now groups of soldiers with spears and sword began appearing. Now and then they also bumped into a hypnotized soldier with the pixie dust still stuck in his hair, but those were fewer than Sayron had hoped.

As the legions began forming Jinx and Kniff exchanged glances. The Purple Scourge remembered what she'd desperately wished for during the journey through the Wasteland: an enemy she could look in the eye, an enemy that could bleed. _Well, here we are._ She grinned and felt herself come back to life again. She unsheathed her sword, as Kniff juggled with his dagger. Together they plunged between the soldiers, cheering. 

With the salamanders on their side there was no one able to block their path for long. And they could use the altitude to their advantage; the lizards had a scorching, but infallible grip on the platforms and tree trunks, but the soldiers turned out to be rather allergic to falls of more than a hundred meters. 

Eventually the end of the settlement came into sight and Sayron saw a bridge to solid ground before them. On both sides waterfalls thundered down into the depths. The elves who'd picked them up pushed the Minions towards it and continued fighting themselves. "To the Queen! Hurry! We'll keep the soldiers away!" 

Sayron nodded. "See you later," he grinned, his armour caked in blood and enjoying the atmosphere. The elf growled, turned and jumped back into battle. 

The Overlord ran across the bridge as fast as he could, between the flows of water. Behind those their path was flanked by two statues of Fay, both with raised arms as if in silent prayer. Not long after those his boots once again sunk away into warm earth and lush, dark grass. For a brief moment he blinked his eyes in surprise; it felt as if he'd run through the surface of a soap bubble. He realized Fay had created a shield around herself, but had allowed them in. 

"What great magic your artefact must have once held, Dark One, for even the power of my Shrines could not revive it." Before them, the Queen materialized in a sky-blue light. "So many have died; so many innocents. It was I who condemned them, so it is only fitting that I tread the same path." Fay outstretched a slender arm. "I will sacrifice myself to fully restore the Tower Heart. Take my magic." 

Sayron seemed to be nailed to the ground. "Milady... no." He shook his head. "If I do so, you will die!" 

"So be it." Fay straightened out with all her royal dignity. 

_"Sire, why do you hesitate?"_ Gnarl hissed_. "This is the fall of light magic! Finally!"_ He was clearly mad with excitement. _"It was inevitable, Lord! Do it!"_

"I can't!" Sayron's eyes were a bloody red. "I can't kill you, milady!" 

In the Netherworld Juno nudged Kelda. "What's troubling him?" the Imperial Mistress chuckled. "Look at him, if I didn't know better I'd swear he's in love with her!" 

Kelda jolted. "No," she muttered. "No…" 

Fay stepped forward and took Sayron's heavy gauntlet between her pale, pearly glowing hands. "Lord... Sayron... promise me you'll fight for my men too. Lead them to victory against Solarius." 

Sayron tightly shut his eyes. As he opened them they were orange again, and he seemed to have silenced something within himself. He nodded. "I'll do what I can." 

Kniff opened his mouth in incense, but Jinx pressed her hand to it before he could speak. "I think he means something else than she's asking," she muttered softly. 

Fay bowed her head. Silently Sayron outstretched a hand to her and she began glowing even brighter than she already did, gently at first, but soon with irregular, electric spikes. She outstretched spastically and threw back her head. "Forgive me, creatures of the Sanctuary," she uttered. "It is the only way!" 

Astonished, Sayron felt a gigantic amount of power flowing through him and into the Heart. The pearl pulsated with light, faster and faster, as if it was hungrily screaming for more. It'd cost him some time to take it all, he realized, baffled by Fay's amount of magic. No wonder she glowed by herself... He was glad she'd never decided to directly attack him. 

Around him, the shield was breaking down. The Overlord felt more magic flicker and die down, and he understood the Queen had supported a whole range of defense mechanisms with her mind. Now they were gone, it was certain the Empire would reach them... the Sanctuary would fall today if nothing stopped them. 

In the tunnel entrance three elves came to a halt, panting, blood on their weapons and clothes. "Queen Fay! _No!_" 

The Minions unsheathed their weapons. The elves raised their swords and attacked with the force of despair. 

"She's our last hope!" one of them snarled at Sayron as he tried to push Aches' blade away with trembling arms. "Let her go!" 

The Overlord shook his head and kept going. "She gave me permission herself. I'm your new ruler." 

"We will die for her!" another yelled. He broke through the horde, but Sayron beat him to the ground with his free hand. "That can be arranged," he muttered, as he kicked the elf back to the Minions. He turned back to Fay, but at that moment she flew upwards and out of his grasp. He looked up with wide eyes. 

"Poor thing!" a high-pitched voice chittered. "She's gone quite, quite mad, Petunia. We must save her!" 

In the grasp of two fairies the Queen floated away through the cave. Sayron ran after them, gripped by rage, flinging up lightning, but he didn't manage to take them down. Behind him the last surviving elf laughed, gurgling in his own blood. "You'll never get her," he whispered with his last breath.

Sayron and the group followed Fay as fast as they could, but before long the fairies and the Queen floated away along a steep descent, slowing their pursuers. 

"You don't understand!" Jinx caught. "I'm your Queen, listen to me!" 

"But you're not very well, are you dear? You need a lie down!" 

The horde leader didn't know whether to snarl or laugh. No matter what, she flashed forward as fast as she could and readied herself to whack Fay from the air – and then of course catch her and put her safely back on the ground. She sprinted down the slope and jumped, flung her ropes around a jutting branch and swung to the Queen. But just before she reached her, something rose in front of her that made her wish she'd never jumped. 

Eyes without pupils but filled with a poisonous green glow, a skin like a waxy leaf surface, crossed by red veins... 

Jinx yanked herself to the side, but couldn't prevent her side and left leg being pierced by dozens of red, razor-sharp thorns as the dryad swept her arm around. A gruesome laugh resounded. Jinx landed hard and immediately started pulling the thorns from her body – she didn't know how immune she was to most toxins and didn't want to run any risks. While she was still on the ground Sayron and the rest ran past her, Kniff pulling her up and Simmer giving her a supporting push with his horns. Still plucking away at the thorns she ran with the rest, in an attempt to escape the dryad. Fay was of the highest priority here. But the plant woman flung out the vines on her back and dragged a few Minions back to her. 

Sayron was about to run on, but Jinx turned around. The Overlord looked back and swore. "Leave them! Come on!" 

Jinx ignored him and jumped up to the dryad. Soon she'd cut through the vines, and the salamanders' fire turned out to be an effective attack; the dryad shielded herself with the leaves on her back and moved no more. Jinx left her for what she was and sprinted after Sayron. Soon she ran past the panting Overlord and caught sight of the fairies again. She tried her hand at a second attempt, fiercely hoping there was no dryad lying in wait here. She wrapped her ropes around a sturdy branch, jumped and grabbed the Queen around her slender waist with her free arm. The fairies desperately fluttered their sparkling wings, but didn't manage to keep both Fay and Jinx airborne and lost their grip. They shot up and disappeared through a higher canopy. 

Jinx landed on her feet and kept the Queen standing. "Sayron!" 

The Overlord came running through the undergrowth, the salamanders around him and the rest after him. "Well done," he panted. All the running of the past day started taking its toll.  
>Fay's eyes were still closed and she only kept standing because Jinx supported her.<p>

However, she jolted up straight as Sayron's magic struck her for a second time, and her lips moved faintly. "...What... what is this feeling?" she mumbled, almost inaudible, but Jinx just caught it. "Your... your dark energy... is taking me over... my light is fading..." 

Jinx looked up at Sayron with wide eyes, as her hands didn't leave Fay's shoulders. The Overlord was a dark shadow in his own crackling light, his eyes were flaming red. With a jolt, she realized what he was doing... 

Then, as sudden as they had been catapulted away, the two fairies were back and they snatched the Queen from Jinx' hands. She swore wildly and let a rope fly up, but the two had already disappeared through the canopy. The tinkling of their magic died away far ahead of them. 

And behind them, there already resounded the explosions and the unmistakable chanting of an Imperial legion... 

**(NETHERWORLD)**

"If you ask me..." Gnarl said out of the corner of his mouth, just outside the mist pool, "he's replacing her magic with his own..." 

"No!" Kelda called out. "No, no, no! I won't believe that! She's going to _die!_" She furiously stomped her feet, refusing to believe what she already knew, somewhere deep down; she'd seen the same when Sayron had fought for Juno, that day on Everlight. "There will be _no_ third woman squirming her way in here!" 

"That is up to our Master," Gnarl shrugged. "She'd be a nice addition." 

"_I'm_ the queen here," Juno bit, to Kelda's surprise. "That glowing wretch won't dethrone me." She exchanged glances with Kelda. "I'd rather have you," she admitted in a low voice. 

Kelda nodded reluctantly. "Hm." She knew the Imperial Mistress didn't care about Sayron himself anymore; she enjoyed the power and riches far more than she did her Overlord. And Kelda herself started to lose her patience with her love as well. He could make many mistakes, but not all. If he brought a third woman in... he might just notice his first one had left him...

**(SANCTUARY)**

"We're not losing her!" Sayron shouted with determination. "Come on!" He jumped out between the mossy rocks at the head of the group, into the meadow that lay behind them, uncaring of the unicorns that grazed in it and now raised their elegant heads rapidly. Their horns glinted in the dim light, and Sayron knew what damage they could do. Still he didn't slow down. He ran straight at the frontmost magical horse, just as likely to change course as he did. However, before he could skewer himself on the horn, the unicorn crumpled to the ground. Two arrows had pierced his pale chest. They ended in the red feathers of the Empire. 

Sayron looked up as he ran across the meadow. Some unicorns followed him, but behind them came the first archers. They backed away as the Minions turned against them. The Overlord didn't look back again; he'd seen Fay's glow between the leaves. 

He circled round through the undergrowth and left the soldiers to Jinx and the horde. They were quite enjoying themselves, judging by the sounds. One unicorn dared to follow him, but a quick move of his armoured arm had broken its neck before the beast knew what had happened. 

Eventually he approached the fairies from the right side. It was an orb of lightning that downed them, and the Overlord could just catch Fay in his arms. He crushed one of the golden creatures beneath his heavy boot. The other made off chittering. Sayron looked after her, slightly concerned, but then Fay moved in his arms. 

"Sayron..." 

"Don't worry," he spoke tenderly. "It'll be over soon." He let his power flow, and she pressed her face into his shoulder as her light seeped out.

"He's not coming back," Jinx concluded dryly with a glance at the chaos around them. "Very well." She swept one rope and her sword around to keep her attackers at a distance. "Hit it, boys!" 

They were completely surrounded by human archers and soldiers. There were some unicorns, too, but they were well underway to fight to the death against the spearmen of the Empire. 

"Spears can burn," the horde leader grinned as she kicked one of the frontmost soldiers in the chest so hard he fell backwards. Yes, there were the salamanders... low to the ground, ridden by the red Minions, and with so much fire in their mouths the meadow was soon set alight. The clans that could burn hurried to safety, laughing as the legion ran around screaming. 

"Is that all?!" Jinx shouted as the last soldiers fell down burning. "_Come on!_" 

Then she turned around abruptly. Further behind them, still in Fay's chambers, were more sounds she didn't feel comfortable with. She started moving. This hadn't ended yet.

"The darkness…" the Queen muttered. "The evil… it´s all so… beautiful…" 

Sayron tensed, and jolted as her eyes suddenly shot open. They weren´t sky blue any longer, but a poisonous green. 

"Take my magic! Take it all!" she uttered, convulsing and clawing into his chest. Sayron tightened his grip on her and quickened his takeover. 

Then the colour of her eyes started flickering. Glimpses of blue started coming back, despite the fact he was absorbing her magic even faster than before. Fay gasped for breath. The convulsions continued. "No… light magic… needs me…" 

"Quiet," Sayron growled, louder than he´d wanted. "_You_ need the darkness." 

"Yes," she sighed as her eyes slowly closed again. But almost immediately she started frowning and mumbling again. The light inside her fought to the bitter end… 

"Lord!" 

Sayron looked up. There, running towards him through the forest, were Jinx and the horde. "I´m sorry I left you," he called out. "I almost had her!" 

"That´s what we´re for, Lord," the horde leader grinned. "How is she?" 

Sayron opened his mouth to answer, but then a tinkling reached his ears. A golden light surged through the canopy. Then, before he could do anything to prevent it, dozens of fairies swarmed around him and Fay. Some of them hooked onto the Queen´s shoulders, her arms, her waist… 

And before he knew it the power of all those wings had lifted her from his arms again. 

As she lost contact with Sayron, Fay suddenly called out. "No! Let me go!" 

"Easy, your majesty," the fairies chittered. 

"Are you really this stupid? Are you even hearing me?!" 

"You´re sick, milady, and we must help the sick and enfeebled!" 

And torn as she was between light and darkness, the Queen stared down at Sayron, with eyes rapidly shifting between green and blue. Then they closed. Sayron flung a lightning orb after the fairies, but missed. Then, with a terrible curse, he started running again.

For a brief moment Jinx stared after Sayron. She didn't know what consequences this would have… darken Fay! She hadn't seen this one coming. 

Then she flashed up into the canopy. She was very certain of one thing. If Fay was darkened they'd have a very powerful ally, a true ally, and it didn't matter to her whether or not she was friendly if she came to live in the Netherworld. Not only that – maybe they'd even gain full control over the elves! If she had any honour as a horde leader she would now give everything she had to take down those fairies! 

She could see them, disappearing in the high branches, far above her. As she sprinted after the swarm of golden glistenings, higher and higher, aided by her ropes, groups of birds flew up, little hairy creatures darted away from her and strange lights flashed in the leafy twilight. Jinx didn't allow herself to be distracted from her prey. Even as some fairies flew back and surrounded her with a cloud of pixie dust she held her breath and flew through it, wiping it off her face as soon as she got out. 

"Fay!" she shouted up. "If you really care about us, resist! If you really care about him…" 

"Stop it!" something to her right called out. "She is the lifeblood of the Sanctuary! If she dies, everything here dies! Don't take her away…" 

It was an elf, and he started catching up on Jinx. The horde leader ignored him. Above her something was happening. The larger figure in the golden swarm was struggling, Jinx realized. Fay was shaking off her saviours. The elf next to her gasped for breath. 

"There's no helping some people," one of the fairies complained as the Queen swatted her away. A moment later all of the creatures left her and she started falling. Jinx swung to the side, quickly landed on a branch and outstretched her arms. She'd become strong since she first set foot in the Netherworld, but this impact made her fall over, back to the forest floor. She didn't let go of the Queen, but grabbed her with one arm, which soon started protesting.

With her other hand she cast out a rope. She landed running and skidding, and Fay moaned as Jinx didn't manage to fully shield her from the impact. "That's what you get for flying off all the time, lady," Jinx said, then she looked around with a hunted look. She could just see Sayron, in the distance and running towards her. 

"Lord! I've got her!" 

"What am I to do without you," he grinned. He skidded to a halt and raised a hand in which lightning was already brewing. As he let go, Fay straightened out to him as if drawn in by a magnet. 

"That's it!" she called out, her eyes suddenly open wide and of a toxic green. "Consume me with your dark majesty! The end is coming, I can feel it... The darkness is overwhelming me!" 

Sayron's eyes were open just as wide and glowing with anticipation. The Minions gathered around them, weapons at the ready to defend their Master if the Empire caught up with them. 

Then Fay opened her eyes even wider. For a moment they shone a blinding white. Then they became blue again. 

"The darkness... will never claim me," she stammered, faltering but in a clear voice. "Light magic must always have a place in this world..." 

"Milady!" Sayron cried, despair in his voice. He pumped even more energy in his lightning, but a blue light started blooming around the Queen. 

_"We're almost there, Sire!"_ Gnarl shouted. _"Convert her! Just a little longer!"_

But Sayron couldn't do anything anymore, for he had to shield his face from the blue flame that ignited in his grasp. 

A heartbeat later his arms were empty. Fay was gone. And he would have to guess as to where. 

The Overlord uttered a terrible cry. In the blink of an eye he had his sword in hand, and Jinx and the Minions had to jump back as he struck, hacking away at the trees and undergrowth blindly in pure, unfiltered rage. Jinx had never seen him this furious. 

"Lord..." 

"_Gone!_" 

"Lord!" 

"She's gone!" he thundered. "I almost had her!" He grasped his head in his hands and bent over. "I'll never see her again..." 

_"Sire, get out of there!"_ Gnarl's voice resounded. _"There's nothing left for you! I'll send a gate – come back before the Empire finds you!"_

"I'll rip them apart!" he roared. Then he noticed Jinx was hanging from his arm. His bloody red eyes cooled for a moment witnessing such recklessness. "Jinx, let go," he spoke, deathly calm. 

A Tower Gate dug its way out of the rich forest soil. At the same time the smell of smoke reached the group. They looked back. Yells and the sound of marching feet reached them. The Empire was coming, they were with many, and they'd set the forest on fire. 

"This really is the end of the Sanctuary," Jinx muttered softly. She mourned it. This place was unique. 

Then a new figure landed just outside the group. "Fay...!" 

A moment later the Minions had grabbed the elf. It was the same one who'd followed Jinx through the trees; a youngling with reddish brown hair and clothing the colour of autumn leaves. 

"She's gone," Sayron spoke as he took the elf from the Minions and lifted him by his throat. "And you're going to tell us _where_." 

And with that, as the first soldiers emerged from between the trees, he stepped into the Tower Gate.

Somewhere, far away on the western coast, south of a mighty capital, a dark-skinned man looked back and smiled a self-satisfied smile. 

Omari had only been gone for a short time. Still, he was past Arcadiopolis already, and still travelling south, to the land that called him from within the very blood in his veins. 

He'd have to be quick to be back in time for the end of all things. But if he relied on his magical abilities, he'd make it easily. 

"I'm coming," he whispered to the wind. A heartbeat later the Imperial coast was empty again.

**General rushes forward and hugs Jinx: You're okay!**

**Jinx: Um, what?**

**General: Don't scare me like that. Good grief you were incredible.**

**Jinx: Thanks?**

**General lets her go: And I see the salamanders have joined us. I am going to promote you to Captain as soon as I clear it with the master.**

**Jinx: You may want to steer clear of him right now.**

**General: Yeah… a shame Fay got away but at least the Tower Heart is fully armed and operational. I'll make sure it is stored away safely. We don't want it exploding again.**

**Jinx: I hear that. Please review readers. See you next time.**


	29. Everlight's Dark Side Part 1

**General Maraxus and Jinx are playing Overlord chess in the Minion burrows**

**Jinx: And my Minion Pawn takes your Soldier Pawn.**

**General: You may have ruined my Pawn formation but I bring out my Sentinel Bishop and take your Wolf Castle.**

**Jinx: Then my Spider Knight will take your Gargantuan Castle.**

**General: No so fast my dear, I bring out my Marius Queen to take your Mistress Queen.**

**Jinx: Why did they make Marius the Empire's Queen piece?**

**General: No idea. Probably because he's the highest ranked person besides Solarius.**

**Jinx: How come I don't get a piece?**

**General: Well this chess set was made before you came along. The white pieces are supposed to be the good guys, the Empire. Soldiers are Pawns, Gargantuans are Castles/Rooks, Sentinels are Bishops, Centurions are Knights, Solarius is King, and that leaves Marius as Queen.**

**Jinx: Sounds like a fun game for him.**

**General: Then the black pieces are the evil group, Overlord is the King, his Mistress is Queen, Minions are Pawns, Wolves are Castles/Rooks, Spiders are Knights, and Salamanders are Bishops.**

**Jinx: Happy birthday by the way.**

**General: Thanks. That's kinda why I uploaded this chapter today, as part of the Birthday Bash celebrations. Hope you enjoy, I do not own this story or characters. It all belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart.**

**Everlight's Dark Side**

Screams echoed through the deepest vaults of the Tower. The bars of the dungeon trembled with it, but that didn´t make the screamer stop. The voice was raw and hoarse by now, but the owner was clearly in so much pain he couldn´t silence himself.

"No more!" the young elf shrieked. "No more!" 

The dark shadow towering over him grinned a terrible grin. "But you haven´t helped me at all!" 

The elf screeched again as Sayron twisted another pin in his flesh. He fell away in a sobbing silence. His back was covered in whip marks, his arms and legs were broken, brands in the shape of claws and eyes had been pressed to his body and his face was beyond black and blue. And still, he hadn´t talked yet. 

His sobbing echoed through the torture room, but he stopped as a strange sound drifted in. It sounded like the slapping of wet fish to rock. A moment later a blue Minion came down the stairs. Sayron smiled at him. "Hello, Miko. I hoped you´d join us." He turned back to the elf. "Blue Minions – exceptional clan. They can fully heal any injury and even bring people back from the dead." He raised his eyebrows in suggestion. 

The elf shivered, paled and nearly fainted – not because of the pain, for he could clearly bear much of that. It was the idea of even more pain, far longer, which almost broke him. 

"I can lengthen this, kid. I don´t care. I will get that information." 

Miko stepped forward and healed a broad stroke of skin on his back with a single touch.

Sayron immediately pressed a brand on it. "_Where is she?_" 

The elf screamed. "Everlight!" 

"Ah!" Sayron´s eyes lit up. "And where on that hellish island, pray tell?" 

The elf inhaled, fast and trembling. He knew where his Queen was. The only place they had left. "Orntal," he whispered, his eyes shut tightly. 

"Good boy."

"The location of Orntal," Gnarl spoke excitedly, later that day. Sayron had personally tortured every detail from the elf´s lips. "It is far from the nearest Tower Gate, I´m afraid. You´ll have to stretch your legs like in the old days." 

"No problem," Sayron shrugged. "I´ve been to that jungle earlier." 

"Yes, I know, and I don´t doubt your abilities, Sire," Gnarl spoke, his yellow eyes still on the map. "But you haven´t seen this part yet. I´ve been hearing stories, Sire..." 

"Stories I´ll prove right or wrong with pleasure," the Overlord laughed. He was all cheered up now he had a way of tracking down Fay. He didn´t doubt the fact he´d be able to fully convert her this time – she´d been strong enough in the Sanctuary, and the light had kept him out long enough to protect her mind, but this time... This time he´d have her. "How long will we be travelling?" 

"Two weeks, maybe three." 

Sayron frowned lightly. Longer than he´d thought. 

"That´s mainly because you´ll be travelling through these mountains, Lord..." Gnarl pointed at a mountain range on the island, taking in most of the north side. "Orntal is on the other side. But if you depart for Ignavopolis today I´m sure you´ll make it there quickly." 

Sayron rose from the throne and stretched out. "We´ll leave today. Get me some spider riders." 

"Certainly, Sire."

**(MINION BURROWS)**

"Ready spider riders!" it resounded through the barracks, sometime later. A brown messenger ran across the bridges and shouted himself hoarse. "Assemble hordes! Leaving for Everlight today!" 

In her barrack Jinx bumped her head on the low ceiling as she shot up. The home started swaying. "Everlight!" She was wide awake immediately, her eyes bright with excitement.

Next to her Kniff rubbed his eyes, and wiped the tip of his new hat from his face – the headgear had belonged to the elf they´d taken from the Sanctuary. He didn´t seem to be satisfied with it, though. 

"Everlight?" he yawned. 

Jinx swiftly buckled on her breastplate and knee protectors. "I was hoping Fay went there! Oh, Kniff, we´re going to see the jungle again! Blue sky!" She thought for a moment and realized the last time she´d seen blue sky had been on Everlight – a short break just before the battle for Nordberg. She couldn´t wait to go back!

Not that much later, in Ignavopolis, the town on the Everlightian coast, that desire had cooled slightly. 

Jinx had forgotten winter started setting in. And in the tropics, winter meant rainy season. As they´d come to the island for the first time, it´d been spring and Kniff and her had only experienced the tail of it, a monstrous thunderstorm which had lasted all night. This was just like that, but slightly more enthusiastic. 

Ignavopolis was a series of canals now, descending to the ocean, and all of them were filled with churning water. The reds had been sent back immediately. Sayron was practically wading through the streets, and the Minions had to try their best not to be flushed away.  
>It took a while, but eventually the Overlord was spotted from within the white houses, and people came out with their arms over their heads or with improvised umbrellas. They were overjoyed to see him, laughing and jumping in the rain. "Lord Sayron!" "Master!" <p>

"Hello," the Overlord grinned. "I heard about an attack by the Empire, I´m sorry I couldn´t be there – but I also heard you put up quite a show." 

"With help from your Minions, Sire," one of the men grinned. He wore a centurion´s helmet, but the red feathers had been taken out and replaced with brightly coloured parrot feathers, now ruffled and sticky with water. 

"Marcus Cassius," Sayron laughed. "You´ve held your ground here." He looked around, and despite the rain he felt cheerful and proud – this city would never be taken from him, not by the Empire and not by the elves. This city fought for _him_, just like he´d always hoped. And all that under command of a man who´d once been a centurion himself – Marcus, the lap dog of governess Cardea before he´d killed her and claimed him. 

In the meantime Jinx inspected the town´s Minions, led by Rasp and Nails. She was glad to see them again – she remembered the good old days when they´d fought side by side in Nordberg, and she´d begged Mortis to bring the both of them back from the Well. Now they exchanged stories of their adventures while apart and Jinx told them how Stripe had met his end. 

Eventually Sayron called them back together and they left Ignavopolis behind. They strode upwards, against the wild water, and turned their backs to the wildly churning sea. After a last glance at the rainy white city they left the path, and eventually, finally, stepped back into the great green maw of the Everlightian jungle.

**(NETHERWORLD)**

Kelda sat on one of the sculptures in the top of the Tower, staring ahead in rage. Sayron hadn´t even said goodbye as he left – not to her and not to Juno. He wanted to pursue his new love that badly – Queen Fay! An elf, of all beings! He didn´t have just one, but two women who loved him in their own ways, supported him, and he left them just like that!  
>She cast a smouldering look back to the Tower Heart, half charged and thus abandoned. It could be instable, so Sayron had left it here, where it´d hopefully be safe.<p>

Filled with _her_ magic – everything had started because of this. Kelda gnashed her teeth. She outstretched her foot and kicked the pearl, not hard enough to damage the relic, but it did give a satisfying thud. 

Immediately a dark red glow flared within the pearl. A deep growl resounded through the room – low, and just within hearing range. As it died away Kelda wondered if it had really been there. 

Then a voice rang out, just as deep and dark. _We have only one heart, Nordbergian. Watch your feet._

Kelda´s breathing came rapidly. With wide green eyes she stared at the Tower Heart as the glow dimmed and died away. 

"I will," she said with a small voice.

**(EVERLIGHT)**  
>Crawler gnashed his teeth. As the spider tender, he couldn´t appreciate the recent events.<br>Fire and sparks ascended with the trembling air at the red Hive. Dozens of large glowing forms flitted across the rock walls, and those weren´t the reds themselves. 

All surviving salamanders from the Sanctuary had been welcomed into the Netherworld, and they seemed to like it better than their leafy first hideout. They basked in the lava flows, made their burrows in the many holes in the basalt walls and rapidly became familiar with their red riders. No, the reds didn´t need to be jealous of the spider riders any longer.

Actually Crawler felt incensed – it had taken the greens far longer to get the spiders to get used to them. Except that one special case with Ramul and Letho, that was. 

It was, in a way, good that the rainy season had started on Everlight – now the reds had more time to get used to their mounts. They did so above the lava flows, and the normally quiet clan was exceptionally loud now, cheering and shouting whenever an acrobatic manoeuvre succeeded and also when rider, mount or both fell into the lava. Hoarse and his mount, a large lizard with dark patterns above his golden eyes, looked down on the clan from atop a higher rock peak, like stone guardians. A little higher, Fever was clinging on, with a strange look in his eyes – almost pained, as if he´d just been kicked. 

Crawler spat. They could play nicely, but they knew almost nothing of the animals and would never become perfectly adjusted to them if they didn´t know as much as he knew about the spiders.

Beneath the canopies of the jungle, however thick and dark they were, it was no dryer than in the open. The water slid down via the leaves, to the forest floor and the travellers striding across it. 

For the travellers, it was almost like they were walking underwater – warm, white water. The rain came down, but it was so hot it immediately came back up as well, as mist clouds swirling up from the soil and filling the space below the canopy entirely. Sometimes it was difficult to breathe and it felt more like drowning instead.

In the beginning, Jinx had thought it´d be impossible to enter the trees now, but she´d discovered that idea was just a product of her lack of practise lately. She´d been unable to climb trees the last few weeks, and she underestimated herself. The trunks might be slippery and the branches might be moving in the wind, but she still had it in her, and she was slowly starting to remember everything she´d learned as she´d travelled across Everlight alone. She´d be Sayron´s eyes and ears during this journey, and scout ahead when he could not. 

They walked the entire day, and as they went the rain diminished to a spray and then a thin fog. The land had been flat thus far, but Jinx knew they´d soon end up in the mountains – their journey would become harder then. 

As the rains finally stopped and the clouds were torn open the last sunlight bathed the jungle in a fiery glow. The rising mist caught and reflected the reddish light, so the air seemed to be on fire again. Both Jinx and Sayron thought back to the Salamander King.  
>They travelled on that night, until a few hours after sunset. The Overlord and the horde leader combined their strengths to catch two large deer, and Sayron lit a fire with his lightning to cook the meat. Then they finally made camp and slept around the weakening fire, as all around them nocturnal animals whistled, reflecting eyes looked down on them from the dark treetops and the bright Everlightian stars winked above them. <p>

Jinx lay awake for some time, bone splinters of the deer added to her bandana. She looked up at the stars between the leaves, overjoyed, and breathed in the heavy jungle air. Here she was home. She fiercely hoped she´d have the chance to return here often during her life.

The next morning they were awakened early, for the rain had started again. As the leaves started to let the water through, Jinx instantly was both awake and soaked. It was still dark, but it wasn´t clear if the sun hadn´t yet risen or the clouds once again covered the entire sky. 

The water poured down from the sky again. Jinx hoisted herself up from the soaked forest floor with dripping clothes, wiped her dripping hair from her eyes and looked up at the dripping leaves. Now she understood why everything on Everlight had that waxy sheen. "Is it going to be like this every day?" she groaned, shivering and resisting the useless urge to wring the water from her clothes. Fortunately, it wasn´t cold – she was shivering with disgust at her sticky clothes. 

"I think so," Sayron muttered darkly, pouring the water from his boots and trying to keep them empty as he put them back on. The water streamed and splashed off his armour and granted him a strange, misty appearance. Fortunately arcanium couldn´t rust. 

The Minions didn´t have better luck. The browns and greens had flattened their ears, even Scabies. The browns, with their soaked rat fur, looked smaller than normal. The blues, of course, couldn´t believe their luck. 

"Well, now we´re awake, let´s start walking," the Overlord spoke. "It´s a long way to the mountains." 

Fay seemed to be further away than ever. Still, he picked up a steady pace – straight into the west.

In the days that followed they grew more used to the weather. It was the same every day. In the early morning the clouds rolled across the entire sky and the rain came pouring down. In the afternoons that subsided and in the evenings it often disappeared entirely – save for the rising mist. As the days passed, the moment it stopped raining came increasingly early, though it could also be unpredictable at times. And so the travellers were forced to adapt to the rain. Mainly Jinx was in her element; she added enormous smooth leaves to her clothing, so the water rolled off her. Every day she improved her creation further, just as she once did with her ropes. The vines were still usable after all those months, and her raincoat was of the same good craftsmanship. She also added material to her bandana so the water rolled past her eyes and she had clear sight once more. 

The Minions followed her example, but not all did so with leaves. Minc, for example, used the coat feathers of birds once he´d seen the water rolled off those just as easily. They fitted with his cassowary skull, and he started to resemble a strange, dangerous flightless bird, with four claws and pointy ears. 

The clouds concentrated above the low plains of Everlight. At clear moments, they could see the mountains in the misty distance, and those pierced the clouds with their summits – up there it probably was foggy, but dry. 

Despite the moisture no one fell ill, but there were fungi appearing on the Minions´ clothing. In some cases it was bad enough for the fungus to win, forcing the owner to dispose of the clothes. Even Jinx´ leaves weren´t safe, despite their water tightness, and she had to replace them every once in a while. 

During all that, Sayron was safe in his metal casing. The arcanium once again proved immune to rust, and as long as he kept the hinges well covered, no water leaked inside either. He´d ordered Ramul to let his spider weave a cloth, which he wore around his neck to prevent water from leaking into his helmet. The silk was as least as watertight as the other materials, and many greens had taken to it to protect themselves. Sometimes, as Kniff wrung out his soaking hat, he jealously glanced at the new garments of the other clan. 

The hopelessness of the first few days had passed, and they moved quickly. The mountains came ever closer, and nothing could divert them from their course. 

Not yet.

Further to the west, but not as far away as it once was, a slender woman lay beneath a protecting canopy. She seemed calm, but an observing viewer might see her hands and ankles were bound with thin ropes. Her eyes were closed most of the time, but as they opened they were often green – sometimes even with a glimpse of yellow. 

"She´s not well," a soft voice spoke in an even softer tone. "The darkness´ hold is a firm one." 

"Can´t we pull that magic out, like the Scourge did with her original light?" a second asked. In this voice, sorrow and powerlessness shone through. 

"I´m afraid not. None of us is strong enough to replace that magic – it´s simply too much. And if we don´t replace it we run the risk of her weakening and dying. Our Queen is depending on very much magic to support her, and she´d collapse without that power." 

"Then we can only wait," the second speaker stated bitterly. "And hope that maybe, one way or another, light may still win." 

"Yes." 

Silence descended, there in the light wooden shelter in the rain, high above the forest floor. One of the elves turned his eyes east. There a massive mountain range rose up, silhouettes in the mist. He hoped with all his heart the shades living there wouldn´t be joined by the darkest shadow of them all.

"The land is starting to slope upwards," Jinx reported as she let herself slide from the tall tree she´d climbed to see across the land. It was a forest giant, at least seventy meters tall and covered in vines and epiphytes up from about five meters, so it was almost invisible from ground level. 

"Just hills at first, but it changes rapidly after that. Two more days, then we´ll reach the first mountain passes." 

"We´re making good progress," Sayron nodded in satisfaction. "Anything else that strikes your eye?" 

"Not as far as I can see from that tree," Jinx grinned. "The world below is invisible from up there. I saw a huge mountain condor – I didn´t know birds could grow that large." 

"Jinx." 

"I´m sorry," the horde leader chuckled. "The wildlife doesn´t interest you, of course. But it was really huge, it…" 

"Jinx," Sayron hissed. "The wildlife does interest me, very much in fact – turn around real slow." Behind him the Minions were backing away, Jinx realized, and her grin froze. Very slowly, she looked back over her shoulder. 

Barely ten meters away, a gigantic scraggly mountain of fur sharpened even more gigantic horns on a mossy tree trunk. The horns were sharper than swords, and broader than Sayron´s spread arms. The animal they were attached to was just a bit higher than the Overlord was tall, had hooves larger than Jinx´ head, and, this was the most fearsome, it wasn´t alone. Behind him in the mist an entire herd travelled past them. The hornbeasts were soaking wet and the water was rising from their rough fur in billowing clouds of steam.  
>Jinx fervently hoped they wouldn´t smell them and view them as a threat. But even as the thought passed her mind, the frontmost bull raised his massive head and snorted, a deep, resonating sound terrifying her even more than his appearance. <p>

The dark eyes on the sides of the gigantic head widened. The white was visible. Then the hornbeast let out a deafening roar, and the rest of the herd turned. 

The split second before he started running, Sayron saw the frontmost bull was larger, more muscular and more murderous than the rest of the hornbeasts put together. And he knew without any doubt, with the certainty of a man about to die, this was the same bull that´d chased him into the elven temple, during his first voyage across this terrible island. 

And then the entire herd stampeded towards them.

Sayron´s heartbeat thundered in his chest. For a moment the Overlord saw his life flash before his eyes, but a part of him kept telling him he´d faced more dangerous foes – these were just big cows, nothing compared to for example the Salamander King. Large, dangerous cows. Dangerous cows who´d skewer everything and everyone on their horns at the smallest of provocations. 

Well. They were smaller than some of the things he´d killed, but ten times as aggressive.

And this for herbivores! 

He realized he was just as fascinated and drawn in as he was terrified. 

And then and there, as his whole being came up against it screaming, Lord Sayron of the Netherworld made a decision. 

"Jinx!" 

"Lord?" Jinx bounced through the treetops as fast as she could. That way was faster than running. She was panting, but other than that she sounded deceptively calm. 

"We´re going to catch that bull." 

"That bull, Lord?" The horde leader pointed behind her, and the bull she meant was so large she hadn´t possibly been able to point at anything else. 

"That bull." 

"Do you want to die, Lord?" 

"Absolutely not, Jinx." 

"I´ll do my best, Lord." Jinx still sounded calm, and Sayron realized she was slightly in shock.

The Overlord grinned wildly. "Thanks." 

Then he turned, planted his feet onto the forest floor, spread his arms and surrounded himself with the brightest, most fear-inducing orb of lightning he could manage. White-hot tendrils outstretched to all directions as he turned into a blinding, crackling column of light.

The reaction of the hornbeasts was immediate. Some of the weaker members of the herd changed course and thundered by next to Sayron or ran off the other way, but the stronger members proved to be exactly as fearless as the Overlord had thought. And the very largest bull headed straight at him, not startled by the lightning, but even more enraged and determined to skewer the Overlord on his horns. 

It was at that moment Jinx let herself fall onto his neck and flung her ropes around his hooves. The bull tripped, and caused some other hornbeasts to fall as well. The herd slowed down. That was what Sayron had been waiting for. He let the column of lightning fade out and outstretched his left hand. Blue light crackled in the palm of his hand – the same kind which had subdued the yeti so he executed only Sayron´s will. 

The first jolting tendrils reached for the bull´s broad forehead, between the horns. 

The beast´s eyes widened. He threw his head aside, so the magic ricocheted off a horn. He straightened out, and Jinx´ ropes snapped one by one. The horde leader swore wildly as she saw her favourite tools give way. 

The bull thundered on and threw Sayron over. With a wild snort he ran on, straight through the horde. Then he and the rest of the herd disappeared into the mist again.

"Damn!" Sayron punched his fist into the moist forest floor and pushed himself up. The entire front of this armour was caked in mud and rotting leaves. A small distance away Jinx sat on her knees. Her hair obscured her face, but the Overlord could see the remains of her ropes lay frayed and limp across her lap. 

He awkwardly approached her. "I´m sorry, Jinx." 

She sniffed and wiped the mud off her face. "Doesn´t matter. The arcanium´s still here. I´ll make new ones." She looked up and managed a lopsided smile. "Well, we´ve lost them." 

"Not forever," Sayron answered. "I think they won´t leave us be until we´re done here. And besides…" He looked back to the horde, and his eyes lingered on the spider riders. "All clans have mounts now, except the blues. It seems useful to have one myself." 

Jinx smiled. "Indeed. You wouldn´t be able to ride a wolf like the browns… and me."

**(NORDBERG)**

Yelps, short growls and the howling of wolves resounded through Nordberg. 

The brown Minions had recently succeeded into getting their shy mounts back into the city. The people had no trouble with it – the wolves were on their side now, or the other way around in fact. And at night the town was safer than ever, because ´their´ pack kept other predators at bay, and even the sporadic rat plagues were history. 

This night, however, was different. No matter the size of the pack, this night Nordberg was far from safe. 

A soft growling resounded in various parts of the city, and it didn´t come from the wolves. It came from a number of houses. 

Then the growling changed to screams, soon ending in gurgling. In various places lights blinked on as lanterns were lit. Somewhere a woman ran outside, half her face covered in blood. Once on the streets she bent double and started convulsing as if she was epileptic. As she straightened out, her eyes were white and her skin grey. Behind her, her husband came outside, mutated as well, and they growled at each other like animals. 

In two more places in the city the same thing happened. Five men, four women, three children – the remaining survivors from the Wasteland. 

Seffec shot up straight in his hard bed as there was a wild pounding on his door. He´d buckled his weapons in place very swiftly, and he immediately saw he´d done right. A few people were at his door, but Minions too, and none of them seemed at ease. A little further he saw some men running through the streets, weapons in hand, and peering into every alley as if they were on the hunt for something. 

"Mutants?" the Ruborian leader groaned. 

One of the men at his door nodded silently. "They´ve hidden. But we hear screaming from time to time." 

"And by then it´s too late," Seffec added as he stepped outside. "We need armed men everywhere before they get to the women and children." He cursed himself – he never should have let the survivors into the city! But he´d been blinded by their helplessness – there´d been children. He ran into an ally and hoped he´d run into one of the mutants. He had to end this as fast as he could. 

He pressed himself against a brick wall and gestured to the others they had to join him. For a moment memories shot through his head, images of white plaster walls beneath a burning sun. Straw rooftops and winding alleys, where one could shake off pursuers so very easily… 

But he wasn´t in Napata anymore. And he was the hunter now. 

They crept through the dark ally, as Seffec´s men showed him the way to the spot where the mutants had been seen last. 

Before they were there the leader heard a sniff above his head. He looked up. Straight into the round white eyes of a mutant child, his head bald save for a few rough stubbles, his skin grey and his nails elongated into claws already dripping with blood. The child clung to the wall upside down, like an exotic insect. It giggled with a gurgle, showing blunt black teeth.

Then it shot away, with a speed one would expect from an insect. 

"After it," Seffec roared, and he drew his sword. "He´s on the roofs!" 

A crack and flying straw a block away told him that wasn´t true any longer. They sprinted around the corner and Seffec yanked open the door of the suspected house. At the same moment there was a scream, a gruesome cracking sound, a gurgle… and even as the Ruborian ran forward, the body of a woman came rolling down the stairs, to come to a halt before his feet. 

Her neck had been broken. From the top of the stairs came the giggle of the child. 

Seffec rushed up the stairs and flung the dagger from his belt to the window. The weapon struck the child as it was about to jump outside, and it fell down into the bedroom where the woman had come from. Her husband stood pressed against the wall in shock. 

Seffec stepped forward, and the child´s milky white eyes followed him as he stood above it. A moment later his scimitar separated the deformed head from the frail torso. 

"That´s one," he called out. 

"Seffec," panted Sethos, a man with straight black hair falling into his eyes in thin, messy bangs, "if people get bitten…" 

The leader swore. "Search everywhere! No mercy this time!" He cursed his own naivety – he never should have let those people live. 

What followed was an almost hysteric hunt through Nordberg. Everywhere they went they woke the people, but they were too late so many times – the mutants were far faster than the shuffling zombies that had been formed thus far with the human victims of the magical plague. As the first child had crawled across the walls like a fly, there was also a girl running and jumping across the roofs with inhuman speed, hiding in the straw and behind chimneys as the men came closer. She slipped into every window and made dozens of victims before Masud finally shot her from the streets. 

The women were less agile, but far more ferocious. They hissed and shrieked, and as the Ruborians and Nordbergers formed a tight circle around one of them many were bitten with long, needle-sharp teeth. Seffec gave the order to execute every one of them before they mutated themselves. His blue eyes were hard as ice, and a bitter line formed around his mouth. His men didn´t resist, but lowered their eyes as the blade fell. 

And the mutated men… 

The men had become roaring, milling beasts. All five of them were the centre of a whirlwind of destruction. Their eyes had been grotesquely enlarged or shrunken, sometimes both. Their bodies sprouted appendages and claws where none should be. It took nearly the entire Ruborian force to take them down, and many men were bitten, wounded or ingested the flying blue blood of the mutants. Seffec resisted the urge to turn away and assisted in doing what had to be done. He swore never to make such a mistake again. 

The Minions had helped just as much as the humans. A few of them had also been bitten or wounded, but they had mutated immediately and killed off soon after. It had a stronger hold on magical creatures, or so it seemed. 

Seffec wiped the tears from the corners of his eyes and forced himself to control his breathing. Masud joined him. "God, tell me you haven´t been caught," Seffec said, almost pleadingly. Masud shook his head, and the young leader managed a trembling smile. 

"Don´t smile." 

Seffec looked down, into the sulphury glowing eyes of a brown Minion. The rest of his face was dark, and so was his expression. "Master will be furious." 

A heavy hand came down upon his shoulder. One of the men who´d fought with him stepped before Seffec and placed his crossbow across his shoulder. It was Kivner. "Boy, I advise you not to tell him yet. That also goes for you," he spoke to the Minion. "Lord Sayron won´t be pleased, but maybe his mood will have improved once he´s found what he´s looking for now." 

"Queen Fay," Seffec understood. He swallowed and tried not to look around – to the massacre he´d caused. "You´re right." 

"Master will still be furious," the Minion repeated ominously. He spat on the ground before Seffec´s feet. "Stupid boy." 

Seffec clenched his jaws. He knew he was in for a rough future. 

He accepted his fate. No matter how cruel the Overlord would be, he knew he´d deserved it.

**(EVERLIGHT)**

A day later they reached the base of the mountains and a series of passes and slopes led them up. Sayron was content – they´d got here one day earlier than Jinx had predicted.  
>He´d never been here before, but Jinx had travelled through the Everlightian mountains. And now, like then, they entered a cloud forest – everything was covered in moss, from the forest floor up to the highest branches, and a constant, milky white fog even thicker than in the lowlands floated beneath the canopy. Sound didn´t reach far here, but every now and then they still heard a growl or a whistling call, startlingly close, without ever seeing the source. Once a few Minions saw a huge panther, seemingly grey thanks to the mist – colour didn´t reach far either. But the inhabitants of the cloud forest didn't bother them.<p>

A few times they passed through fields of tallgrass, but they left them as fast and silently as possible. Sayron had no intent of seeing grass bears ever again, not even to get his hands on their fur. 

They travelled through the mountains at high speed, careful not to attract unwanted attention, not even as Jinx, Sayron or the Minions were on the hunt. No one felt at ease in this foggy world – even the greens felt like they were being watched. 

Mountain passes and gorges passed them by. Now and then they spent whole days shuffling along a ravine path barely a meter across, and if it turned out to be a dead end, they had to climb or descend along dangerous cliffs. By that time Jinx had already fabricated rough new ropes from the vines of the cloud forest, but she was still perfecting them and she had to get used to the new material as well. Fortunately, she had been able to save the arcanium spikes and attach them to her new creations, so she could still use her favourite weapon.

It was on one such day, on the edge of a ravine but on a slightly broader path, when Jinx stared over the edge and suddenly held her breath. She halted, and Kniff bumped into her back. He looked up. 

"What´s wrong?" 

Jinx didn´t answer, but kept staring down. Kniff followed her gaze. The ravine was filled with mist, reaching up high against the mountainsides, so almost nothing was visible below. 

Or was there… 

The Minion swallowed as he suddenly saw a shadow moving in the fog. His yellow eyes widened. He pulled on Jinx´ sleeve. "Jinxie. Don´t want to know what that is." 

Jinx let herself be pulled along, but kept looking down. She seemed frozen, and her jaws were clenched tightly. Then, all at once, she yelled one word. 

"_Wings!_" 

The shout echoed away into the mist. For a moment everything was still like a painting: Sayron at the head of the horde, the Minions walking along the ravine in a long line, Jinx, Kniff, the mist itself. 

Then a second cry ripped the silence apart. It was a high screech, making the air tremble and paining some Minions so severely they yanked their ears down. Kniff looked up at Jinx with panic in his eyes; the horde leader had clasped her hands to her mouth and stared down with even wider eyes. 

Then something ripped itself from the milky clouds below them. It started as an enormous grey shade, growing and shrinking with the beat of gigantic wings. It quickly became more clear, and Sayron gasped for breath as the large head with the high ears came into sight, then the hairy body, the leathery wings… 

Then the bat suddenly was above them, and the Minions staggered back beneath the savage beating of his wings. The huge flyer screeched again, directly at the group this time, and the misty light gleamed on teeth able to bite through the toughest leather or even metal. 

Sayron raised a hand and started readying his lightning. The bat was too fast for him, however, and a stroke of a hind leg with claws like daggers scythed him off his feet. It was at that moment that Jinx´ staring eyes found the scars on the beast´s flat snout. Her eyes widened as she realized this wasn´t the first time she saw this bat… 

The yellowy-brown eyes of the beast turned to her. For the briefest moment they stared at each other. Then the bat swooped towards her and his hind claw closed around her waist. 

"Jinxie!" 

The horde leader freed her arms and outstretched them to the group. Kniff leaped and grasped her hand, but couldn´t do anything to prevent what came next and was dragged off himself. 

As Sayron scrambled up, the bat was already gone, vanished into the fog. His horde leader and one of his Minions were gone, and there was nothing he could do to change that. 

The Overlord ran to the edge and screamed in frustration, but quickly stopped as he realized he might attract more bats. He swore and pounded his fists against the rock face until he had no rage left.

**Maraxus: JINX!**

**Gnarl: Oh dear**

**Maraxus: Why do the good, or evil, always die so young?**

**Gnarl: Pull yourself together. Weren't you going to inspect Nordberg?**

**Maraxus: Ah yes I was… if you hear anything about Jinx-**

**Gnarl: Yes yes I'll let you know. Now shoo, get out of here.**

**Maraxus vanishes through the portal**

**Gnarl: JINX!**


	30. Everlight's Dark Side Part 2

**General Maraxus Herbison hurried into the throne room – GNARL!**

**Gnarl – What do want human?**

**Maraxus – Have you heard anything from Jinx since she got kidnapped?**

**Gnarl – No. How did your inspection of Nordberg go?**

**Maraxus whistled awkwardly – Oh this and that. So no word of Jinx?**

**Gnarl – For the twenty-fifth time NO!**

**Maraxus – Then I'm going to find her. She's too useful a field agent to lose.**

**Maraxus vanishes into the portal.**

**Gnarl – The General does not own this story nor its characters. The OCs and the incredible story all belong to Sunjinjo on deviantart. Read on and be amazed.**

**Everlight's Dark Side Part 2**

Jinx stopped struggling as the bat disappeared into the mist. She strained herself to haul Kniff in and then wrapped both arms around him, just as Ripped Wing had wrapped his claw around her. Her stomach shot into her throat because of the steep dive the bat made, but her heart was quick to follow as she realized what had happened.

_He recognized my voice. I shouted and he came. Ripped Wing!_ She couldn´t believe it. Her unease about the fact Sayron had remained alone was just as great as her amazement and, yes, her joy at seeing the bat again.

The flyer took them to the depths of the gorge, where the cold fog was even thicker so they were all soaked with floating water. Drops rolled off the bat´s watertight fur and stuck to the longer manes in his neck. Condensate formed on Jinx´ skin and pearls of dew clung to Kniff´s hat. Then Ripped Wing suddenly turned, and the headgear was blown off the Minion´s head by the burst of speed. Kniff looked up at Jinx. "Didn´t like it anyway," he said in a small voice.

"I´m here, Kniff. I´m sure it´ll be alright," Jinx comforted him, hoping she was right. Was this really Ripped Wing? Weren´t there more bats with scarred snouts? Who knew, they might be highly aggressive and covered with scars because of fights among themselves… 

Then their kidnapper dived into a cave, halfway down the rock face. The change from milky fog to a dark cave temporarily blinded Jinx and Kniff, but soon they saw where they were.  
>The cave was very high – the bottom was invisible – but that was a necessary feat. The entire ceiling was covered in sleeping or dozing giant bats. Some of them hung vertically, suspended from their hind legs, their wings wrapped around them tightly and with half an eye open, others had gripped on with their wing claws as well and crept between the stalactites upside down. Now and then one of them opened a maw full of huge teeth and hissed maliciously. <p>

Ripped Wing flew beneath the colony, his claw shut tightly. Jinx had the feeling he was protecting them from his kin – but why would he? If they were prey to the rest of his kind… why not to him? Would he _remember_ Jinx had saved him from the Arena? 

The horde leader realized she wished that to be true with all her heart.

**(FOREST)**

_"They´re not coming back, Sire. I advise you to go on."_ Gnarl spoke softly, and there was not the slightest trace of humour in his voice. _"Kniff hasn´t appeared in the Well yet, so I don´t know what´s going on, but waiting is useless now."_

Sayron punched the rock face, hard. A low growl rose from his throat, but eventually he closed his eyes and nodded. "Yes." 

The Minions looked up at their Master, but most of them didn´t hold that gaze for long. Many horde members let their ears droop down limply, their claws tensing and relaxing rapidly. Ramul and Drip kept glancing into the gorge, as if they hoped for the bat to return. All in all, Scythe and Aches were the only ones immediately following Sayron as he slowly turned his back on the ravine and walked away. 

_"…I´m sorry, Sire."_ Gnarl sounded a little bit lost, but even that was more than he´d ever shown.

**(CAVE)**

Ripped Wing took them to a side cave, where no other bats hung from the ceiling. The entrance was just big enough to let him through. The fern-covered walls curved away to the other end, closed off by a rushing waterfall plunging down about half a meter from the exit. It was dry and cool inside, and smelt faintly of fungus and rotting leaves. At the walls small toadstools grew, and some stray bones lay spread across the bottom. There he eventually landed and let Jinx roll gently from his claw. Then he put his claws to the ground, briefly spread his wings – the tips stroked along the walls – and then folded them, to land on his wing claws. 

Jinx scrambled up and let go of Kniff. The Minion stood protectively in front of the horde leader and growled. At that, the bat inflated himself to twice his former size, hissing and spitting at the Minion. He opened his jaws wide and lunged forward – 

"No!" 

Jinx jumped in between them, her arms wide. "_No_," she repeated urgently. Her eyes pierced the bat´s with scorching intensity. The animal looked at her with an almost regretful expression. "He´s a friend," she said slowly and clearly. "All Minions are friends. Everything looking and smelling like him… you can´t eat them!" As she said this she wondered if it wasn´t pointless, but she could see how the rough fur and manes flattened themselves, and the bat covered his teeth again. 

"…You´re actually listening," she spoke in amazement. "Are you really Ripped Wing?" She slowly walked towards him and laid a hand on his scarred snout with the utmost care. The bat´s large eyes studied her carefully. 

"Jinxie…" Kniff started, but Jinx briefly shook her head. She glanced at his wings. Relatively undamaged, without frayed edges or holes, but along the wing fingers long, straight scars were visible. Scars undoubtedly left by the healing skills of the blue Minions. 

This bat´s wings had been completely cut away once, but they´d grown back now. This was, without any doubt, unbelievably, Ripped Wing. 

To her own surprise, tears welled up in Jinx´ eyes. "I knew," she mumbled, her face close to the great yellowy-brown eye of the former Arena warrior. "I knew I´d see you again." 

Wing made a strange, soft sound. His eyes were calm, and he slightly lowered his head. Something spoke from that stance – submission. _I´m yours._

Jinx jolted. Her eyes slid over the bat´s face; covered in scars, like her own. His teeth weren´t visible now, and he seemed to look at her in a friendly way, with twinkling eyes full of expectance. 

His wings rustled as he moved his fingers. 

Wings. 

Jinx´ thoughts returned to that one magical moment above Everlight, as she, Kniff and Parch had flown with the aid of pixie dust. That short moment, those few minutes in full flight beneath the jungle moon, had been the best of her life. Better than wild battle in Nordberg. Better than the race for the Key Stones in the reefs of Everlight. Better than killing the Frog King. Even better than forever leaving the Wasteland. 

She´d always wanted to fly, even as a child. 

Before her mind´s eye everything seemed to fall into place. Rushing across the walls with the help of her ropes wasn´t everything her heart desired. 

_All clans have mounts now, except the blues. It seems useful to have one myself._

She loved her ropes, but her deepest wish was to fly. And here was her chance – here were her wings. Here was her Ripped Wing. 

She looked up, back into the warm glistening eyes. Behind her Kniff had fallen silent – he felt something special happening here. 

For just this once, hang Sayron and her position. For just this once, follow her own wish. For just this once, seize her own, wondrous opportunity. 

"Wing," Jinx spoke calmly, regardless of Sayron, Solarius and the world, "if I ride into battle next time, I´ll do so on your back." 

The bat spread his wings and let out a long, triumphant cry. 

The horde leader grinned. "I think I know how we´re going to get to Orntal, Kniff." She looked around. "Alright, let´s get to know our new friend…"

**(FOREST)**

She was gone. He did nothing to change it. 

And every step he took increased the distance between them. 

Sayron trod along the mountain path, his head held low and his horde quiet behind him. Far before him, beyond the mountains and Everlight´s other shore, the sun set in a rare unclouded sky – the monsoon didn´t seem to exist on the other side of the mountains. 

A void had fallen now Jinx wasn´t walking or climbing behind him any longer. 

Would she survive this, too? He didn´t know. Kniff wasn´t dead yet, but Kniff hadn´t been stuck in the bat´s claw. Maybe he´d gotten away. 

Of course – Jinx had been able to convince the bat in the Arena not to harm her, but was this the same one? It seemed improbable. This one just lived here and had seen easy prey in the unprotected human girl – small, without the Minions´ claws, and up for grabs. 

It could just be she was dead now. 

She was, after all, just a human. Somewhere deep down he´d known she wasn´t going to make it to the end of the adventure. Of course, she´d adapted to life in the Netherworld, but she remained human. Humans weren´t supposed to be that closely involved with him. They were supposed to bow down before him, or die. Jinx had thought she wouldn´t have to do either, but she´d been wrong. 

He realized the last real battle he´d been in entirely without her help had been that for the Sanctuary below Nordberg, before he´d met her. 

He´d managed then. He´d manage now. 

This was _his_ war, and there was no place for Jinx anymore.

**(CAVE)**

"Right, where´s the best place to sit?" Jinx pondered as she walked around Ripped Wing. In the back of the cave, Kniff protested weakly, but he too felt his heart jump with the thought of what could happen. 

"When I last saw you, I was sitting in your neck and whacked you in the back of the head," the horde leader grinned. "But now let me look at you." She let her eyes slide over the bat carefully. The animal was covered in grey-brown hair, except his dark wings. A few dark stripes crossed his back, but they were less clear now – Ripped Wing looked much better and had thicker fur now he´d been taken out of the Arena. No longer did his ribs protrude, no longer did his eyes bulge with starvation. The manes in his neck flowed along his head full and long. 

Jinx clambered up into those manes. She noticed she had room to sit there; his wings started at about the height of her knees as she lay down, her arms on both sides of his neck. Her heartbeat increased as she realized she would indeed need to lie down for streamline as the bat flew. 

"You need a name," she muttered to the large, high ears in front of her. Wing half turned them towards her as he heard her voice, then his entire head. One bright eye fixated her carefully. 

"You can´t go around being called Ripped Wing, that name doesn´t suit you anymore," Jinx smiled. She thought about it. "The wings of Everlight. The wings of the western island… of the west. The wings of the western wind…" She remembered one of the gods the Empire had given itself and smiled with irony. "Zephyros… the _god_ of the western wind. How do you like that?" 

The large yellowy-brown eye blinked once and the bat seemed to emanate an intense satisfaction. 

"Jinxie," Kniff started in the corner of the cave. "Have to get back to the Master." 

"I know. But I don´t want to leave him yet." Jinx laid a hand against Zephyros´ rough snout. "I don´t know what Sayron will think of this. But I will do it," she spoke in determination. She finally wanted to do something without asking Sayron´s permission for once. She suddenly realized she didn´t need him to shine on the battlefield. 

"…We do need to get to Orntal," she interrupted her own train of thought. "Zephyros," she addressed the bat, "could you take us? I think I know where we should head." She´d looked at Gnarl´s map before they´d left. 

The bat made a soft sound and stretched his flight muscles. He started to walk to the waterfall, on knuckles and foot claws. Jinx quickly outstretched a hand to Kniff from his back. "Come on!" 

The Minion ran towards her and grasped her hand. Jinx pulled him behind her on Zephyros´ back. As he tried to sit right the bat quickened his pace, until he was almost galloping on his wings and claws, and his muscles undulated beneath the girl and the Minion. Jinx´ heart pounded wildly, her eyes were open wide and her breathing came faster and faster on the rhythm of Zephyros´ pace… 

Then the bat took a mighty leap and launched himself through the waterfall. The horde leader screamed as blood-red sunlight exploded around her, and gravity and the wind caught hold of them at the same time. 

"_Zephyros!_" 

The bat looked back at her, and for the briefest moment he appeared to grin. 

Then he unfolded his enormous, mighty wings, and they were no longer toys of gravity, but they shot forward, away from the waterfall and smoothly over the valley, curving slightly to the west as Zephyros tilted his wings. 

Jinx lay flat on his back, panting and with wide-open eyes. Her thoughts rushed past, but she could grasp none of them. Kniff had caught a firm hold on her legs. She herself clung to the manes in the bat´s neck as if frozen. 

Zephyros flapped, so his wings met each other above her in rapid succession and then touched each other beneath his body. He rose above the valley, above the mountains, above Everlight. Jinx waged a look past his head. There, straight ahead, the sun set beyond the island, sinking into the sea. 

She saw the sea. 

The sea! 

She realized tears were streaming down her cheeks, there in the warm evening light. She watched as the forest passed by below her, without doing anything at all. Below her stomach Zephyros´ muscles moved effortlessly, and his mighty wing beat felt incredible. She looked back to Kniff. His eyes were gleaming. "This is great," she whispered. Her words were lost in the wind. "_This is great!_" 

Zephyros opened his jaws wide and screeched along with her, a high, almost painful sound, but full of pride and the pure joy of flying. He outstretched his wings and soared towards the sunset, there in the high skies. 

The misty land lay spread out far below them and slowly shifted in the depths, clear as a map, up for the taking. Jinx outstretched one hand – it seemed as if she could hold the entire island in her hands. Then Zephyros flapped his wings again and she had to grip on to his fur. 

"Jinxie," Kniff said behind her. 

She looked back. The Minion was grinning broadly. "Don´t have to go to Orntal yet. Master will never get there before us." 

A grin formed on Jinx' face as well. "Oh, Kniff…" 

"Getting to know friend is a good idea." With this, he grinned so wide his face almost split in two. 

Jinx burst into laughter, and the Minion was quick to follow. In the end they were gasping for breath and looking ahead again, their bodies tense with excitement, their eyes gleaming. They were lying clumsily on the bat´s back, but even in this way Jinx knew she never wanted to do anything but fly. 

"We´re going to need a saddle," she shouted. "A saddle! I´ll need to practice! I´m going to return here, Kniff, and I´m going to write history! Zephyros, we´re going to be in the books next to the Darklords!" 

With this, the bat flapped once and then slightly tilted his wings, so they started descending in a wide spiral. The sun disappeared behind the horizon and the air cooled. 

Jinx inhaled deeply and came back to her senses. She thought for a bit. "It seems a good idea to go to Orntal but wait before we show ourselves. We only attack as Sayron gets there too, elseway we´re dead meat." 

Kniff nodded. "Finding Orntal is easier with light." 

"…And so we´re going to make camp. Zeph, I hope it´s not a problem if we fly by day?" 

A soft craw was her answer. She took it as a no. 

They descended and softly landed on the forest floor in the valley, miles from the point they´d taken off from. Jinx and Kniff quickly started on a shelter, but Zephyros took flight again. Jinx was still calling for him as he came back again, a swift dark shadow in the purple sky, and carrying a small swine. It was clear he´d already eaten himself; his stomach was slightly more swollen than when he´d departed. He was a great hunter, and fast at that. 

As he landed Jinx threw herself at him. "You´re too good for us, Zeph," she laughed. "Thank you." 

Eventually they doused their fire and the shelter turned out to be useless, for the bat spread out a great dark wing over them and thus protected them from the darkness and the first rain of the night. 

**(BACK TO SAYRON)**

Sayron and the horde had descended down the mountainside to a lower plain, beneath a thick canopy. They had some mountains ahead of them, but for now they were forced to leave the heights behind them. It was raining more severely here, and they´d had little time to make shelters. 

Sayron tried to make himself comfortable in his creaky, leaking tent. He´d had enough of Everlight. He´d had enough of the rain, the heat during the day, the mountains… he wanted to get back to the Tower, and do what he was born to do: crush the Empire. His whole life – since he´d been found by the Minions in Nordberg, anyway – he´d been told so. He´d squash Solarius and take his place as Emperor. And that was all he wanted. Domination… 

He became aware of their presence even before he heard the soft sounds of their hooves.  
>The Overlord shot up straight. His eyes flashed to the entrance of his shelter and the dark, rainy jungle outside. A flash of lightning illuminated the forest floor for one blinding moment. <p>

Giant, dripping forms, just outside the tent. A low, mournful call echoed between the huge trees. 

Sayron narrowed his eyes. He could just as well try. 

He clenched his left fist, and the amber gem flared. Everywhere around him the Minions jolted awake. It didn´t take long before the first of them came to him, silently, as he tried to get out of the tent as quietly as he could. 

"Master?" 

"Another try," he growled softly. "If those beasts keep seeking me out, I keep harassing them." 

"Good, Master." 

Sayron looked around. The hornbeasts appeared to be asleep, the main part of them at least. He turned to his Minions. "Scythe." 

The green leader raised his eyes to him in a flash of glowing amber. "You lead your horde to them. Kill them all, except the largest bull. Claw their throats off before they can alarm the others. No spiders." 

The Minion nodded silently, signalled with his claw knives and faded into invisibility along with his clan. 

Not ten seconds later the first hornbeasts started sinking to their knees. This far, the greens did their job well – but they were masters of shadow and silence. Sayron looked on, tense, his sword in hand in case something would go wrong – something he expected any moment.  
>And indeed, as the Minions reached the front of the herd a few hornbeasts jolted awake. A roar ripped the silence of the forest to shreds, and the hornbeasts started thumping their hooves and flinging their heads from side to side. Another yell resounded; one of the greens had been skewered. <p>

Sayron froze, his jaws clenched and his eyes narrowed as far as he could so the hornbeasts wouldn´t see the glow. In the rain they probably couldn´t smell them, and if he just let the greens have their way… 

Then a deeper voice called out. One hornbeast turned exactly the right way. 

Of course. The bull. 

Sayron tightened his grip on the sword as the leader of the herd thundered for him, the surviving beasts behind him. The greens bounced from back to hairy, dripping back, but they didn´t succeed in killing another beast. 

"At them!" Sayron roared. The brown horde joined him, and Sayron himself went straight for the bull. 

Time seemed to slow as they rushed towards each other, in the darkness and the pouring rain. 

As his herd fought, roared and died all around him the largest bull looked straight at the Overlord, unfiltered rage and hate in his eyes. And in the one moment before the horns would impale him, Sayron outstretched a hand and let the blue lightning fly, between the horns, between the eyes of the hornbeast. 

The gargantuan hooves dug in the soaked earth. The hornbeast slowed down… 

As the bull came to a halt in front of Sayron, his head inches from the Overlord´s helmet, the beast snorted deeply. A growl that made his armour tremble escaped from the mighty throat. The hornbeast raised his eyes; they were still filled with the crushing hate of the leader of the herd. Sayron swallowed. 

Then the enraged expression melted away and the bull relaxed. He shook his head and briefly pounded a front hoof down. 

Behind him the last bulls and cows of the herd collapsed. 

Sayron gently placed a trembling hand between the mighty horns. The beast looked at him, filled with unshakable trust. 

The Overlord felt his heart leap up, and a breathless laugh escaped him. Full of the utmost surprise he stared at his newest follower. 

"I´ll ride into battle with you," he grinned. "And when we do, the earth will tremble beneath us!"

**(AND WE RUN BACK TO JINX)**

The next morning, Jinx was woken early due to her surroundings suddenly becoming lighter and cooler. She opened her eyes, to see a huge dark surface moving away from her. For a moment she was clueless, then she realized Zephyros had lifted his wing. 

Next to her Kniff woke as well, stretching and clawing the ground with his feet. Jinx wiped the earth off her and silently thanked Zephyros for protecting them from the worst rain and moisture. She hoped he wouldn´t be troubled by his efforts. 

As she stretched out herself she groaned, the full aching of her muscles hitting her like a brick. She´d been all cramped after the flight – she hadn´t been sitting on the bat´s back right at all. She looked up at him. "I need a saddle," she grinned painfully. "This isn´t working." 

"Saddle?" Kniff yawned. He glanced at the remains of their dinner. They´d skinned the swine, and it´d granted them quite a lot of hide, but they´d need at least three times as much for a real saddle. 

He looked at Jinx for a moment. Both started grinning. 

A short while later they´d strapped their weapons on and they disappeared into the jungle. Zephyros ascended above them, as if he knew what they were up to and wanted to help. 

The Minion and the girl stalked around the forest for about half an hour, then they caught track of a group of small deer. Jinx used her magic to stun three of them, then she and Kniff jumped from the undergrowth to finish the job as the rest of the herd bounced away into the bushes around them. Then Jinx climbed up a tree and called Zephyros down. They skinned the deer and made rough bags out of the skin first, which they strapped to Zephyros´ hind legs – not too low, so he could still land and walk. The meat they scraped off the rest of the hides disappeared into those, as rations. 

Then they started on the hides themselves. Spread out, they were big enough for a rough saddle and some thin straps, with which Jinx and Kniff would be able to fasten themselves on the bat´s back. There was no time to tan the hides into leather – that would take days. Jinx figured they could just take some tanned leather from the Netherworld once they got back. 

"Kniff," she pondered as she cut thin straps from the hide to make ropes, "should we show him to Sayron? I don´t think that´s such a good idea." She couldn´t get the feeling off her chest Zephyros had shown himself to her only, and she´d left the Overlord behind, in a way, by accepting him. And after all, Sayron had ordered her to kill the bat in the Arena. Maybe he´d think she was getting too many of her own ideas… just like he´d done in the reefs, where he´d almost taken her free mind from her. 

"Don´t know," the Minion answered. "But careful is good," he added. "Test first?" 

"Ask around carefully, you mean?" Jinx chuckled. "How do I do that? Oh, gods, how will he react when we just barge in? How do I explain?" 

Kniff grinned. He could see even as she asked, more than a dozen ideas reared their heads and she tested them for credibility. 

"We´re traveling too fast to tell him we came on foot. We need transport. We´ve built a boat and travelled downriver after we ended up in the valley? No… Not fast enough." Jinx rubbed her head. "We…" Something occurred to her and her eyes widened. "…Hornbeasts. Hornbeasts! We came across the herd again and we persuaded them…" A crooked grin spread across her face. "…_I_ persuaded them… I discovered another hidden talent, this being the dominating magic, and we came very close to Orntal – you´d be surprised at the speed of these animals, Lord! But then we came through grass bear territory and we lost our mounts to the bears…" She laughed. "This isn´t plausible." 

"This is Everlight," Kniff objected. "Could just happen." 

"Yeah. I´ll improvise." She rubbed her head again. "And I´ll do so to see if I can show him as well." She finished her cutting and tied the straps through holes in the skin she´d made earlier. The skins soon formed a whole, and as Zephyros knelt before them they could tie it all together below his chest, just before his wings. Because of his wings it could be attached at just one point, but Jinx could hold on well and as long as the bat didn´t perform any loops the speed would press her and Kniff to his back. In order to perform more complex flying styles a better saddle would be needed, and Jinx promised herself that time would come. 

The horde leader hooked her lower arms and feet through loops in the saddle and tightened them. Behind her Kniff did the same. Jinx clung to the leather and even before the bat took off, she felt her muscles wouldn´t ache the next day – and Zephyros wouldn´t be troubled by her either. She´d probably yanked on his mane pretty hard the previous day. 

Jinx reached forward and handed the bat a large chunk of meat. "Thanks, friend. I don´t know who we have to thank for you, but despite all the stories I´ll have to make up, I thank the gods." 

And somewhere, deep below the earth, a huge pearl shone with a reddish glow, and a deep chuckling resounded.

**(A/N AFTER TREKKING THROUGH THE FOREST I FINALLY GOT BACK TO SAYRON)**

The jungle was silent around them as Sayron and the Minions travelled on the next day, away from the carcasses of the hornbeast herd. And with good reason. 

It was a fearsome sight, the pair walking calmly between the forest giants. 

The enormous hornbeast let his hooves thud down on the forest floor, and as he shook his head the razor-sharp horns hissed through the air. On his back, his legs practically sunken away in the fur, Sayron sat high and mighty like a king. The duo seemed made for each other – both with fire in their eyes and crowned with horns, and it didn´t matter whether they were part of the body or of a metal helmet. As soon as Gnarl had woken up and joined them through the pool he´d applauded them without a word, and even Kelda and Juno had agreed for once – this was a mighty ally. 

Sayron had already ordered Giblet to forge and fabricate a thing or two, because he couldn´t manage much from his mount´s back now. He could hold on to the horns, but even that wouldn´t be enough once the beast burst into a run. That would happen with the force of an earthquake. 

He smiled. He might have lost Jinx – he cherished a faint hope of seeing her again, for one never knew with Jinx, but that chance diminished with every passing hour – but he´d gotten something in return. Wolves, spiders, salamanders and this hornbeast; when they charged for the Empire it wouldn´t surprise him if the Emperor surrendered spontaneously. 

Sayron had always been slower than his Minions. The hornbeast gave him that extra bit of speed, and the group travelled through the forest faster than ever. The horizon was still dominated by misty, jungle-covered mountains, but he knew they´d almost reached the end of the mountain range.

The end of the mountain range was coming closer fast. Very fast. From the air this was easy to see. 

Jinx firmly grasped the loops on her rough saddle and narrowed her eyes against the sharp wind as she tried to move with the undulations of Zephyros´ body. The sun was almost right above her, and for a moment she admired the shadow of the giant bat as it slid over a pale rock face below them. Then she gazed forward again. 

Mountains rose in the west, but they were growing lower and lower. Even as she looked on, Zephyros soared through a pass between two of the highest peaks – Jinx could see a few striped, monkey-like creatures with yellow eyes staring at her from a treetop on the slope – and then slid down dozens of meters because the thermal they were following spontaneously streamed down along the mountainside. The horde leader had an almost unlimited view of a seemingly endless lowland, with a naked rock tip protruding between the emerald ocean of trees here and there. Mist rose in spiralling clouds from the forest floor, and the few lonely forest giants were also steaming with moisture. Jinx smiled as the familiar sounds and yells of the rainforest once again echoed up to her.

Far ahead the horizon faded, and as she narrowed her eyes the horde leader could swear she could see the sea again, just like the previous evening during their first flight. Now they were flying considerably lower. Here above the low lands the air was moist and drew them downwards. 

As they soared over the last remaining mountains of the range Jinx suddenly spotted something drawing her attention. It was coloured differently from the mountains, and she first thought it to be a very large tree – but then she saw it was a broad tower, covered in vines and half crumbled down. It was visible the top was rounded, or had once been, because the top had also half collapsed. Jinx narrowed her eyes. The tower had been built in such a refined way it just had to be elven work… or, but she hardly dared to think of that, the work of Overlords of old. The building reminded her of the Hive Bastion in the Wasteland – unmatched building skills, refined walls and contours… 

Then it started to hurt to look back, and the tower disappeared behind the soaring rock walls. 

"What could that have been?" she asked. "Do you know, Kniff?" 

"No idea," the Minion answered behind her. He´d gripped on to his own loops firmly, and they turned out to be able to carry him easily as well. 

Jinx looked back one more time, but she couldn´t see the tower anymore. She frowned. She was almost certain it couldn´t be elven work, but the other possibility was almost too strange to be true. Had Overlords once ruled over Everlight? But who? 

"…In any case, we´re going to Orntal with high speed," she then grinned. "We can practically see it! This journey is a lot less rough than I thought…"

A few days later, Sayron, too, descended down the mountains. He had a long way ahead until he reached the lowland, but at least it was visible – spread out into the twilit distance, where the sea formed a dark band around the world. The surface was only broken by the red-hot stripe the sunset cast in the west. 

Somewhere that sun shone on Orntal. The Overlord knew that, and he looked out across the Everlightian lowland with searching eyes, high upon his hornbeast´s back. He´d named the beast Ruau, after an ancient god of earthquakes. 

It wasn´t easy descending the mountainside with him, but no accidents had happened so far. The Minion hordes were still complete, though there hadn´t been any news of Kniff´s situation. And so, nothing about Jinx, either. 

Sayron still hadn´t given up on her completely. He couldn´t bring himself to believe she was dead. But he had gotten used to the idea of not seeing her for a long time – and it wouldn´t mess with his plans if she never returned again. 

The sun slowly sank into the black sea and the land turned dark. Somewhere in the east a low moon shone, but that light didn´t reach across the mountains yet. Slowly the west side was immersed in deep shadows. 

"We make camp," Sayron ordered. The Minions could see in the dark just fine, but his vision wasn´t as good and they´d travelled all day already. If they reached Orntal tomorrow – something not completely impossible – he wanted to be well rested. 

"Yes, Master." A few Minions went to work hastily. 

Sayron dismounted and walked forward – a plateau jutted out from the mountainside, broad and uncovered. Lower on the slope small trees clung to the rocky walls again. The Overlord kept watching the land, still in the faint hope of catching a glimpse of Orntal´s location. 

He caught sight of something else entirely. 

In the depths below him, enormous dark wings were beating. 

A heartbeat later Sayron had lightning in one hand and his sword in the other. "Minions!"  
>The hordes broke off what they were doing and sprinted towards him. "What´s wrong, Master?" <p>

"A bat," the Overlord hissed. 

Drip and Ramul exchanged glances. They both knew what Sayron meant. 

"Jinx!" the Overlord roared. "Are you there?" He knew this was probably useless, but what if the bat had flown here in those few days? What if it had a nest somewhere close? What if – he still hadn´t dropped the thought – this was Ripped Wing after all? 

Ruau roared with him. And it seemed it was the sound of the hornbeast that caught the attention of the flying predator. The bat beat its wings once to turn and then headed upwards. 

A high, long screech echoed up to the horde. 

A few Minions backed away from the edge. Sayron leant forward, his eyes narrowed and searching for traces of his horde leader. 

Then the bat ascended above them like a dark cloud and the sky was obscured by gigantic leathery wings. The beast was enormous – larger than the bat that´d taken Jinx, and certainly twice as long as Ruau. Its wings stretched out from one side of the plateau to the other. 

This clearly wasn´t the bat he was looking for. This was a mistake, and Sayron felt his heart sink as he looked into the beast´s ferocious yellow eyes. 

The flyer bared its teeth and hissed. It was the most threatening sound since the roar of the Salamander King. 

Then it lunged. The wide open maw came down with enormous speed, and Sayron dived away. He could do nothing to prevent Raw from disappearing into the gaping mouth. The Minion´s scream soon died away as the jaws snapped shut, and the bat licked the blood off the fur around its snout. 

Then it turned to Ruau. The hornbeast scraped his hooves across the ground in defence and pointed his horns up at the predator, but the bat wasn´t impressed. 

"They hunt them," Sayron muttered. "They hunt hornbeasts." He clenched his jaws, gripped his sword more tightly than ever and ran towards his mount. He slung himself onto the broad back, and at the same moment the bat lunged. 

Sayron raised his sword, up and forward, and shut his eyes. 

There was a cacophony of sound, echoing away across the lowland and into the deep; Ruau´s fierce roar, the bat´s screech, Sayron´s strained cry. Then everything died away.  
>The bat´s wings slowly folded in upon themselves and the body collapsed. <p>

Sayron retracted his sword from the palate and shook the blood off the blade. It took nearly all of his strength to push the bat off his mount. 

Behind him a cheer rose from the group of Minions, and the Overlord managed half a smile. The bat´s blood dripped down his face. 

"This is what I´m going to do with the bat that took Jinx," he swore to himself. "Beware, flyers."

Later. 

Another setting sun let its soft red light fall at an angle, into a cave high up in a rock formation at sea. East of the formations, after a few meters of golden sand, forest giants rose up – larger than any other on Everlight. Something about the trees made one suspect they hadn´t gotten this high on their own. Here and there, domed wooden roofs were visible between the canopies. 

Orntal. 

Two yellow eyes appeared from the shadow of the cave. They grew wider as something floated into their range of vision, and a broad, sharp-toothed grin appeared below them.  
>On broad, dark wings an Everlightian giant bat soared towards the cave. On his back, his rider waved. "Good hunt, Kniff!" And indeed, the bat´s claws gripped a bloody prey animal. It wasn´t clear what species it was, but it was a lot of meat. <p>

Zephyros landed in the cave, tripping slightly, and carefully folded his wings. Jinx let herself slide from his back. "Anything happened while I was gone?" 

Kniff shook his head. The grin became a gentle smile. His eyes gleamed. "Beautiful, Jinxie." 

Jinx briefly looked up from the prey animal, which she now tried to loosen from the claws. "Hm?" 

Kniff blushed. "Are a real angel now. Black angel of death," he added hurriedly. 

The horde leader looked up again, frowning, but with a beginning of a smile. "An angel? What are you talking about…?" Then she realized. "Angelica," she muttered. Her mother´s name – Velvet of Angelis, which the Empire had changed into the surname Angelica.  
>She knelt next to Kniff, and together they sat into the cave opening, their legs over the edge. Jinx pulled the Minion close. "For you, I´ll gladly be a black angel of death, Kniff," she smiled. "For you I could be."<p>

And behind them Zephyros freed himself of the remains of his prey and leaped up, to nestle upside down on the cave´s ceiling. He crawed in satisfaction and then folded his wings around himself, to remain hanging there as a silent sentinel.

In the west, the sun set. And Jinx and Kniff patiently waited for the sounds of war from the tree city behind the rock formations.

Soon, the battle for Orntal would begin. When it happened, they´d be ready, but neither of them dared think too much of the war that would start afterwards… a moment steadily approaching… the decisive battle for Arcadiopolis.

**Maraxus hurries through the forest searching for Jinx – I hate forests. Give me steel and concrete any day**

**Gnarl – Why are you so insistent on finding her?**

**Maraxus – If Sunjinjo finds out I lost one of her characters she might stop letting me post this story.**

**Gnarl - …FIND HER HUMAN!**

**Maraxus – Aye sir… hey since when did you give me orders?**

**Gnarl – Just find Jinx and hope that bat didn't eat her.**

**Maraxus trips on a vine – For the love of… okay readers. Please review and if you know where Jinx is let me know. Till next time. Oh and make sure to leave a message for Sunjinjo, the one true author and creator of this story who deserves all the credit.**


	31. Shade Lady

**General Maraxus descends into the Netherworld throne room: I didn't find her.**

**Gnarl: Did you check the forest?**

**Maraxus: Yes**

**Gnarl: The rivers?**

**Maraxus: Yes**

**Gnarl: The giant bats' caves?**

**Maraxus: No…**

**Gnarl: Well why don't you go and look there?**

**Maraxus: No way in fudge. I am not going around caves that are filled with those things… I'd get my uniform dirty.**

**Gnarl points at the grass and mud stained uniform: It already is.**

**Maraxus looks down: NOOOOOOOOOOO!**

**Gnarl: Anyway, this sad excuse for a human does not own Overlord nor this story. All the OCs and the story itself belong to Sunjinjo. You can find her on deviantart. Enjoy.**

**Shade Lady**

It was early in the morning when the hammer blows stopped.

Not that Giblet had any idea of that, of course. In his domain the red light of the lava and the fire pits always shone, and he wouldn´t want it any other way – even when he slept, he´d know if they´d be extinguished. 

The master blacksmith dipped his creation in the cold bath next to his huge anvil, waited until the metal didn´t glow red anymore and then combined it with several other pieces of metal. Then he took his hands off it, lifted his steel visor and nodded contently. 

He jumped off the platform at the anvil, lay his hammer across his shoulder and strolled over to one of the two enormous fire pits, where brown Minions were busy hammering out and melting down pieces of armour even now. Giblet left all that to his helpers now he was busy with the big project for the Master, which had to be ready for the siege on Arcadiopolis. The project he´d be able to continue now the smaller work was done. 

A few red Minions helped the brown forgers heat up their work, while others tended to the fire pits. They were the most fanatical, most fiery reds, and they also slept here to be able to start extra early. Among them was a young red with one arm. 

"Sear!" 

The red looked up from the white-hot pair of arm guards he and a brown were working on.

The brown briefly lowered his ears. Sear extinguished the fire in his one hand. "Giblet?" 

"Have something for you." The master blacksmith smiled and took out his work from behind his back. "Here." 

It had the shape of an arm, formed from several metal rods, with a hook on the one end and a short harness of pale fibres on the other. Sear took the gift, careful not to heat up the metal too much. "Giblet…" 

"Is arcanium. Can stand your heat." The blacksmith buckled the metal arm around the red Minion´s stump. The limb couldn´t bend as precisely as a real arm, but with a bit of practice the Minion would be able to climb again… certainly if something else did the climbing for him. 

"Worked hard. But is time you returned," Giblet grinned. "Hoarse needs you more." 

Sear looked up from the arm. His eyes glistened brighter than the fire pit behind him. He swept the hook around and eventually stopped it with his good hand. He clenched his jaws. "Thank you." 

"Thank _you_," the blacksmith retorted. Then he shoved the young Minion towards the stairs leading up to the floating rock, and then turned back to the brown. "Getting you a new red soon," he spoke with a lopsided grin.

Sear rushed upwards through the earth along trails only his kind could use. He felt like liquid magma bursting through the earth´s crust; his joy was almost indescribable, because he was returning for the first time since the Master had travelled to the Empire! And not only that. Together with him, a salamander was being sent up. It was a beautiful, fiery beast with bright eyes and glistening scales, and he couldn´t wait to see what the animal was capable of. 

Then a red light bloomed above his eyes, an enormous force lifted him, he flew through the last meters of dark earth and the red light of the Minion gate, and finally back into daylight. Sear somersaulted through the air, barely dodged his own hook, and landed on his back on the hard roots of an Everlightian forest giant. 

He scrambled up and looked around. For a moment his breath faltered. 

The red gate was surrounded by Minions of his clan. Hoarse was busy organizing the troops and keeping track of everyone, and a little bit further away he also saw the brown, green and eventually the blue clan. Minions – an unbelievable amount of them. Sear hadn´t seen so many in one place since the siege of Ignavopolis on the eastern shore. 

"Sear…?" 

The red Minion looked around, straight into the eyes of another young red. "Pitch?" He grinned. "Long time no see." 

"Sear!" The two embraced briefly – they hadn´t had time to see each other while Sear worked in the forge. Slowly more reds started to realize who´d returned, and eventually Sear´s best friend, who did visit him, also did. 

Simmer and Sear worked themselves towards each other with claws and elbows, their salamanders trailing behind. As they reached each other they silently grasped each other´s underarms. Simmer´s eyes glowed with joy. Sear bared his red-hot teeth in a grin. 

"Lots of wood," Simmer spoke with a gesture up to the Everlightian trees. "Will light fire in your honour, friend." 

Sear was about to answer, but at that moment a horn resounded, further in the meadow. The undergrowth shivered, so the stalks of tallgrass rattled together. 

Then something shining with its own glow came into sight, even though the sun had barely risen and the treetops blocked out almost all of the light. Simmer and Sear turned to the apparition, and most of the other Minions followed their example. 

More shining forms appeared. A sharp intake of breath went through the horde. 

They were unicorns – dozens of unicorns – and they carried elven riders. 

And they kept streaming in.

"You´ll never reach the gates of Orntal, demons!" the leader of the riders yelled out over the horde. His unicorn reared up, anticipating the battle, and the sharp, slightly curved horn gleamed in the glow the animal emitted. "We won´t allow you to lay a finger on our Queen!" He gestured with the elegant spear in his right hand, and the other riders gathered behind him. The horde remained in the characteristic unorganized chaos of the Minions. 

Then, amidst the tallgrass opposite the elven riders, another figure loomed up, taller than them, broader than them, clad in razor-sharp metal. 

The leader swallowed. "Men…!" 

With a loud crack the stalks gave way. The largest hornbeast the blond, helmeted elf had ever seen came to sight. And on its back the Demon Lord sat upright like a king on a saddle of rough leather. 

Though the elf couldn´t see the Overlord´s expression, he knew the armoured giant was grinning gruesomely. The steel-covered hand caressed the hornbeast´s head for a moment.

"Crush them, Ruau," it resounded affectionately. 

And the earth trembled.

**(ORNTAL)**

A vibration went through the treetops. 

The shiver continued in the body of a slender woman, lying in a high arbor, seemingly without a sign of life. The disturbance seemed to awaken something within her, however, and a sudden sigh escaped her lips. 

"Queen Fay!"

Two elves hurried to her side and one of them placed a hand on her forehead. "My Queen, can you hear me?" 

There was no second sign. The Queen was deathly pale and had refused to eat for several days. Her strength was waning rapidly, and no one in Orntal had any idea how to save her.

And without Fay… 

"That vibration," the other muttered. "Something´s wrong…" 

He fell silent as the wind carried in the screaming.

The clearing outside the borders of the tree city was a bloodbath. 

Multiple bushes of tallgrass were on fire, and so were many elves and unicorns. Of course, Minions had been run through with horns and spears, but there were so many. The hordes had clenched together like a fist and they fought back like never before. The reds had sent their salamanders into the trees and now flames rained down upon the clearing. The greens did the same, but with their own claws and the poisonous fangs of their spiders. The browns streamed forward on both sides of their Master, the blues stayed behind to tend to the dead and wounded. 

Sayron formed the front line by himself, and he loved it. He could unleash Ruau completely for the first time. The hornbeast thundered across the clearing, and with every sweep from his massive head he flung elves and unicorns away to the left and right – the fragile magical horses were no match for the beast´s brute strength, and the horns might be sharp, they didn´t pierce the combination of rough fur, tough hide and Sayron´s defences. The Overlord had broken an unicorn´s neck from the saddle twice already, and now did the same to an elf by pulling him in by his spear, dislodging his head once he could reach it.

Sayron rolled his shoulders and let his laughter echo through the forest. "Is this all?!" he roared. "Come on, elves, I´ll get out of shape! The Empire might have a chance!"

Up in the trees Sear´s salamander shot from branch to branch, the sticky pads under his toes giving him an infallible grip on the mossy wood. In his tracks the bark lit up a faint red, and where many salamanders passed after each other real fires often ignited. Thick black smoke started to rise from the canopy. 

As the reds flashed forward, elven archers appeared between the branches, and beside the clan´s fire it also started raining arrows – only causing the fire to be aimed upward.  
>Sear clung to his salamander´s armoured shoulder with his hook – the animal had such tough scales it didn´t even react – and slightly moved the fingers of his good right hand. A fire that wouldn´t look too bad on Hoarse – and might even be brighter – ignited between his claws. <p>

A heartbeat later the frontmost archer looked down and noticed the smoking hole in his chest. Half a dozen limp elven bodies tumbled down to the forest floor. 

The reds systematically slaughtered the archers and only looked down once they heard Sayron´s voice. "To me! We move on!" 

On the ground the Overlord leered at the remaining unicorn riders menacingly. "Tell them your new Master is coming," he growled. 

As they galloped in the direction of the city even the unicorns seemed terrified.

**(UP IN THE SKIES)**

A few miles from Orntal, above open waters, the sun glistened on the water like on polished silver. The weather was calm, there was a good, gentle wind and the warm air from the island was blown across the ocean. 

All in all, a perfect day for flying. 

And that was exactly what a certain girl was doing. 

Jinx checked the leather straps with which she was secured on Zephyros´ back again – she hadn´t forgotten how often her ropes had snapped in their first stages. Then she allowed herself to turn her face to the wind, feel the sun on her head and enjoy the feeling of her stomach somersaulting into her throat. 

The bat now reacted to her commands almost perfectly, commands which she gave by touch and simple words. Jinx knew very well Zephyros had only heard humans talk for the first time when he was being shipped to the Arena, but he seemed to understand her very well now. He seemed to enjoy obeying her. But touches to his neck or ears did well, too. 

Jinx grinned. She knew she´d have little use for gentle touches in battle. She had the tendency to shout at everybody then, and she was glad that´d work just as well.  
>In the past ten or so days she´d flown with the bat daily, with or without Kniff. In the first place for practical reasons – they had to eat, and it was surprisingly easy to hunt from the air. Zephyros seemed able to spot game through the treetops, and he could fold his wings so well he could plunge through the canopy without any damage. The membranes were so tough they weren´t even scratched when branches hit them. <p>

Most times the bat killed his prey when he crashed down upon it, by a bite in the back of the neck or by the pure shock of such a huge predator falling out of nowhere. The ascension later was harder, and it had occurred Jinx and Zephyros were forced to wander beneath the canopy for half an hour to several hours, the bat on hind legs and wing claws, searching for a clearing from where they could take to the sky again. 

The second reason for the flights was pure practice, and like most of the practice Jinx had had since her rebirth in Mortis´ nets she enjoyed this one to the fullest. She wasn´t about to neglect these wings for so much as a single day. She was aware of the fact she was changing, but it was a good change. In the air she felt stronger, more powerful than ever. She knew it would probably never be possible, but her biggest wish now was to fight from atop Zephyros´ back. 

The bat folded his wings, swerved left and down to a lower altitude. Thin veils of morning mist opened up before her eyes. Jinx had free sight of the Everlightian shores and the forests beyond… 

…and the column of smoke rising from them. 

She widened her eyes. Sayron. Sooner than she´d expected… had he been aided by something, too, increasing his traveling speed like hers had been? 

Her hands flew to Zephyros´ mane and she steered him north, to the rock formation that held their cave. "We have to go get Kniff, Zeph," she yelled against the wind. "It´s time to put foot to the ground again…"

**(FOREST)**

A vibration worked its way through the undergrowth, all the way to the point where it started to lose its thorns and sprout colourful flowers. In short, all the way to the area where elven magic softened the viciousness of the Everlightian flora and turned it into something repulsively lovely. 

Ruau pounded through bushes and shrubs, and as he did so the salamanders followed the hornbeast immediately. The paradisiacal gardens around Orntal were going up into smoke, and where the dark legion marched past scorched stalks and scorched earth were left behind. 

Birds and fairies ascended in panic. Gnome nests exploded in a chaos of running hats, but not before the salamanders had dug out and devoured the stragglers. The reds barely managed to keep their mounts form eating their full and falling asleep. 

Then the tall brush parted, and a tree higher and broader than the Overlord had ever seen rose before the horde. It seemed as tall as the Tower itself, and so broad he couldn´t look around it. 

He didn´t have to, however, for he could look right through it. The tree split in two high above his head, and vines and green mosses hung down in the passage. Lights floated just behind the gate, and ancient inscriptions decorated the tough bark. 

Behind the tree-gate the forest was interwoven with hanging baskets, and everywhere in the trees elven dwellings sprouted as if they were living extensions of the forest itself.  
>Sayron patted Ruau´s flank with a grin and drove the hornbeast onwards. With pounding hooves they stepped through the gate, into Orntal. <p>

Even the chorus of tropical birds above Sayron´s head had fallen silent, and the noise of the horde was the only sound now. Sayron let his lightning burst to life in his hand. "Where is Fay?" he roared. "Where is my queen?" 

His voice echoed through the forest, but there was no reply. 

At least, not until something started moving in the twilight between the trees. Branches creaked and leaves rustled as a plethora of shapes emerged from the verdant darkness. 

"Our Queen is safe," an authoritarian, female voice spoke. "The Mother Goddess watches over her, and you won´t spread your dark claws over her, Scourge!" 

Before Sayron´s eyes twelve jiggling priestesses stepped out of the forest. They formed a crescent between the horde and the city and raised their arms. Coloured lights flared up in their hands. 

In the branches, snake-like shapes moved. The reds that had spread through the canopy from the tree-gate hissed and tightened the grip on their mounts. 

Dryads unfurled the leaves on their backs and spread their arms with the sound of snapping twigs. Toxic green eyes without pupils bored into Sayron´s. 

And everywhere, in the trees, on the ground, even in the canopy right above the horde, elves appeared. With bows, spears and swords, on foot or riding unicorns. The last legion of light magic had assembled, and it was strong. 

Sayron grinned grimly. He´d never expected it to be easy. 

"Onwards…"

**(CAVE)**

"Kniff!" 

Yellow eyes blinked open in the dark of the cave. "Jinxie…?" 

Before the Minion knew it the girl dragged him into the sunlight by his arm. Zephyros clung to the outside of the formation with claws and wing fingers. "Sayron´s here! Orntal´s burning! Come on, he needs us!" 

Kniff looked at her, suddenly serious. "Made your choice, then?" 

Jinx fell silent. She looked back at the giant bat, expectantly looking at her from his hanging position. His large ears kept turning between her and the sea. 

The horde leader looked back at Kniff. "…I had the choice before. I chose the horde then. I can´t leave, not now." She paused. "But I won´t show him yet." 

"Good," the Minion nodded. He swung down by his claws, to Zephyros´ lower back. Jinx followed him and buckled herself into position. 

"To the smoke!" she shouted. "This is the end of light magic and I don´t plan to miss it!" 

With a high-pitched screech the bat ripped himself from the rock and clawed himself up, across the sea, the beach and the endless green jungle, fiercely milling his wings around to gain height. They were going to need height, and lots of it.

And in Orntal the air trembled with battle cries, dying screams, the clash of weapons and the shrieks of undiluted magic. 

Sayron was struggling with six of the twelve priestesses at once. The representatives of the elven religion battered him with their personal variants of light magic, and he could barely protect himself with his lightning shields fast enough. Ruau heaved beneath him, but the priestesses stayed well away from the horns. Sayron cursed the fact he´d neglected his magical training – he´d never needed the shields as much as now. He felt the air just outside his shield being twisted and bent, and where the shield weakened he felt the light burn his skin. The dark magic in his veins already resisted and almost scorched itself through his flesh. 

But he could still see the bright green of Fay´s eyes, and her voice as she begged him to convert her to darkness. The power of that memory was too great to ignore. The veins of the lightning shield thickened and started lashing outward. 

In the trees the red Minions split up, and every group was accompanied by green spider riders. On one side of the attack Ramul and Letho led the Minions, on the other it were Hoarse and his salamander. Scythe, the actual leader of the greens, furiously hissed at Ramul as he shot into the vanguard, but the other green simply ignored him. Where spiders came into play, he was the unofficial horde leader, and everyone knew it. 

Poison fangs and claws full of fire were turned against the dryads. The plant creatures hissed and screeched and bared teeth like needles, but none of it deterred the Minions.  
>Just before the leaders hit the dryads, Fever and Stabbit shot forward, and two of the creatures were beaten back. Then the impact of the entire horde followed. <p>

Next to Hoarse, a red with a metal arm shot into the whirling mass of vines and thorns, and soon the back leaves of one dryad flamed up like dry wood. The creature fluttered and tried to extinguish the fire, but the flames were so large and bright they were no longer red and orange, but yellow and blue. Sear flung around flames as sharp as those of a welding torch. 

On the ground Sayron was aided rapidly and from all sides at once. The priestesses had their own shields, but two of them had already been overwhelmed by a combination of brown and blue groups. The blues had – in most cases – never dealt with elves before, but they knew how to punch a hole in a shield. Their webbed hands had made space for the brown warriors, and as other blues turned to the priestesses constraining Sayron a third fell to the sharp claws. 

Sayron tried to keep up his own shields and draw his sword at the same time. He got halfway there, but his shield also weakened. The priestesses cried out triumphantly. A moment later Sayron clawed at his helmeted head, which suddenly felt as if someone tried to break it open with a crowbar. 

_Surrender, dark lord. Light magic has won._

A few brown Minions jolted as their Master´s eyes changed from aggressive red to soulless white. "Master!" 

Then Soaker, the blue horde leader, jumped at the back of one of the priestesses and formed a hole in her shield with his clawless fingers. A brown paying attention saw the unprotected flesh and immediately sunk a jagged dagger into it. The priestess screeched and lost her concentration. 

Now it was one Overlord against five priestesses. Still improbable odds, but… 

…this was Lord Sayron after all. 

The huge, armoured Overlord and the hornbeast he was riding awoke together, with a mighty roar resounding upwards to the canopy. Ruau immediately started swinging his massive head, and even though the priestesses were still protected he could fling them away and break their combined strength. Sayron raised his free hand up high and flung lightning towards the canopy, so huge branches thundered down and crushed the elven warriors. 

The Minions around him found new courage. Yellow eyes flared up, and the brown and blue hordes turned to the shields with doubled efforts. 

This didn't take away the fact the trees were still full of elven archers, no matter how many branches were broken or how well the red horde did its job. Every once in a while a Minion, spider or salamander came crashing down, to thud down onto the forest floor in a broken heap. Multiple browns and blues suddenly noticed they were riddled with arrows. Soaker stared at his chest and shoulders – he had been shot full of holes in an instant. However, he grinned through the pain and ignored the blood. He hurried to the protection of a lower branch, under which he couldn´t be hit, and pulled the projectiles from his body. He healed every wound as soon as the arrow was out, so he didn´t lose too much blood. Then he dived back into battle to heal the others wherever he could. He wasn´t planning on dying today. 

Sayron swiftly recovered from the attack on his mind and estimated the situation, for the first time since he´d stepped into the clearing. He briefly cursed himself – he didn´t really use his head and thought more of Fay than of tactical plans. So far, he´d been ignoring Gnarl as well. But now he could see, to his relief, they were gaining the upper hand. The Minions had prepared themselves well, in contrast to the elves, who hadn´t known he was coming at all, and even less of when and where he was going to arrive. 

It didn´t take long before the remaining priestesses, dryads and elves had retreated, and the same went for the Minions. Time to lick their wounds, the Overlord decided. He called the hordes back to him and gave the order to gather the dead. "Soaker, do what you can," he spoke to the blue leader. The large swimmer ripped a last arrow from his chest, nodded and started on the same task with the other hordes. 

Not long afterwards a large portion of the original Minions was standing up straight again. Sayron noticed, to his annoyance, he couldn´t bring up any Minion gates as light magic was ridiculously strong and dominant here, and his dark force field couldn´t stay up for long; but with these hordes victory should be within his grasp as well. 

_"I think Fay´s palace should be at the heart of the city,"_ Gnarl spoke, no longer driven to the background by Sayron´s deafening heartbeat or the voices of elven priestesses in his skull. _"Knowing her… Onwards, Lord!"_

**(OVERHEAD SKIES)**

Dark wings sailed through the rising smoke above the tree city. On Zephyros´ back, Jinx squinted – she couldn't make out where the most recent smoke was coming from! She couldn´t see where Sayron was now! 

They couldn´t just go down. If she´d land amidst the elven soldiers she´d be dead meat. The world knew her now, she could no longer trust the little tricks that´d saved her in the Reef and Arcadiopolis. 

She´d have to wait. But there was something else she could do. 

The Purple Scourge lay her hands in the neck of her mount, and the bat turned his wings.

The trio soared across the rest of the city in a wide arch, overlooking the elven constructions going on for miles. 

It was a maze. In many places the elves had removed trees – or maybe even relocated them – so an elegant pattern was formed, somewhat resembling a giant crop circle, in the middle of the rainforest. On the treeless spots houses and towers had been formed from lower undergrowth. Where full, living rainforest was still present, the canopy was hung with multi-coloured flowers and slender arbors. 

In the heart of the city the tallest tree of all rose up. The crown spread itself across the surrounding meadow protectively, but Jinx could see a domed roof worked into the branches. She didn´t doubt whose palace that was. 

She looked around to the smoke in the east. Sayron wasn´t entirely headed in the right direction, she noticed. 

She cast a last glance at the complicated structure of the city. Then she sent Zephyros back to the plumes of smoke. If she could find Sayron, she would be able to guide him into the right direction. 

Hopefully that would spare her from his possible wrath when, again, she turned out to have survived their separation…

**(ORNTAL/GROUND)**

Sayron raised his sword, swearing wildly, and hacked away at the undergrowth surrounding him on all sides. 

_"Easy, Sire, this was to be expected. It surprises me we´re encountering it only now."_ Gnarl sounded calm and controlled as always, but that didn´t help Sayron at all. 

The undergrowth had grown teeth. 

The sky and every other possible view had been replaced by a sea of long, razor-sharp red thorns that´d already left many bloody scratches and cuts on the Overlord and his horde. Left and right, carnivorous plants snapped at their ankles and stinging vines wrapped themselves around their arms and necks from the bushes. 

_"If you try to get out of this calmly… no lightning, Sire, it´s not a good idea to light this area on fire!"  
><em> 

"Shut… it… Gnarl!" Sayron stopped hacking for a moment, growled and closed his left hand reluctantly. The reds would have helped him already if fire would have been a solution. 

Both the red and green hordes danced through the trees on the backs of their mounts, but Sayron, the browns and blues had no chance of that. A small amount of Minions had already been skewered on the foot-long thorns, pushed on by Ruau´s bulk or the fairies shooting through the branches every now and then. 

Then a shiver coursed through the bushes. 

…_Sayron…?_

The Overlord yanked up his head. He knew that voice, even though he´d never heard it in his head before. "Fay?" he uttered incredulously. 

For a moment everything was silent. What followed as an answer, but not a spoken one. 

Everywhere around the horde, the thorns drew back, and a broad path opened up, straight ahead, towards the heart of Orntal. 

The queen had heard him. And she wanted him to come to her. 

Sayron´s eyes shone as he gripped his sword and climbed onto his mount again. Ruau stepped forward with new enthusiasm, between the walls of thorns, as the fairies above them didn´t know what to do with this unexpected change of events at all. 

For a brief moment, they seemed to have free passage. The walls of thorns rose up high on both sides, and nothing blocked their path as the taller trees deeper into the city came closer with each step. But as the trunks were right above them and they entered the forest again… 

…they also entered a carefully set-up battlefield. 

Suddenly the walls of thorns were gone and a clearing stretched away to all sides again. It wasn´t as large as the previous two; the undergrowth restarted a little bit further, and Sayron could also see new dwellings and small towers, partly tucked away between the leaves higher up in the trees. 

What he could also see was a mass of gleaming arrowheads, aimed straight at him on strung bows, razor-sharp unicorn horns on bent heads, and a number of foot soldiers so large he immediately knew he was getting way too close to the queen. 

The Overlord grinned. That was nothing but good news. 

He gently patted Ruau. "Hello, men…" 

The bowstrings creaked audibly. The archers were simply waiting for him to make a move – any move. 

But as Sayron´s mount moved, it wasn´t in the direction they´d expected. 

The Overlord had also seen a tree path starting just a few yards from where he was standing – a reasonably broad wooden bridge gradually sloping upward from the forest floor, towards the parts of the city located higher up in the trees. And as he steered Ruau towards it, it was with such unexpected speed the arrows being shot at him missed him utterly and struck the horde or the quickly raised lightning shield. Dozens of Minions dropped down gurgling, but they gladly did so for their Master and they wouldn´t stay dead – something that couldn´t be said of the elven soldiers the next wave now fell on. 

In the meantime the hornbeast raced up along the tree path with thundering hooves, followed by a large, cheering portion of the remaining Minions. Sayron held on tightly and flung back a second lightning shield, to keep arrows and swords from striking his horde in the back. Then he turned forward and roared with laughter. 

Ruau thundered into a populated part of Orntal. The hornbeast flung elves from the path to the left and right as he continued his upward journey, and the screaming kicked into high gear now. Around him the greens and reds flew through the trees, and as more paths split off from the main one, the brown and blue hordes also radiated away to do their work.  
>This was what he´d wanted to do in the Last Sanctuary. This was what he and Ruau were <em>made<em> for. 

The tree path didn't seem to be made for Ruau´s weight, however. An increasingly alarming creak went through the wooden boards, and Sayron felt the path buckle and wave beneath the massive body. He brought his mount to a standstill, in their insane situation in the middle of the treetops, surrounded by burning branches and running, screaming elves, fighting Minions, salamanders and spiders on all sides. For a moment the Overlord kept standing there and enjoyed the chaos. He wouldn´t disappoint Fay. 

Then he patted Ruau´s broad head. "Seek out a way down," he spoke to the hornbeast. He commandingly pointed at a tree path that seemed to be leading down. "Do whatever you like on the forest floor, friend." The Overlord placed a thin shield around his mount – he didn´t expect many elves to concentrate on the animal, but he did want Ruau back in one piece. 

The hornbeast snorted shortly and then walked to the path. As he started his downward course new screams rose up, and judging by the sound he toppled even more elves from the trees than on the way up. 

Sayron abruptly turned around as the fading sounds were drowned out by the warlike screams of the elven soldiers they´d left behind. It couldn´t last, of course… 

"Minions!"

**(ORNTAL/SKY)**

Blue lightning. 

Jinx widened her eyes, high in the sky. "Kniff! Did you see?" 

"Shields," the Minion nodded excitedly. "And blue fire… have found the Master," he chuckled. 

"Would he need us?" the girl asked with a crooked grin. 

Kniff raised his eyebrows. Jinx laughed. "All right, all right. Even if he doesn´t need us… we need that battle." She turned Zephyros´ wings. "Buddy… we´re going to leave you. But I´ll be back very soon, alright?" 

The bat crawed so softly it was almost inaudible in the wind. A large yellowy brown eye was turned up to look at her. 

"Go back to the cave. I´ll be there as soon as I can." 

Zephyros blinked briefly. Then he turned his head back and powerfully flapped his wings. 

"There," Jinx pointed. "But not too low. We´ll handle the fall. Kniff?" 

"Coming, Jinxie," the Minion answered. He freed himself from the buckles and clambered onto Jinx´ back, his arms tightly around her shoulders. A shiver coursed through his body and he flattened his ears. Flying was one thing, but… 

…they were about to lose their wings. 

"See you soon, Zephyros!" Jinx called out. With those words she loosened her own straps as well and rolled behind the right wing and off her mount´s back. 

Free fall! 

Jinx thought her heart would give out. The wind screamed past and blew her hair up, and almost snatched Kniff from her back. Above her the enormous form of the bat shrunk against the blindingly bright sky. Tumbling and turning, downwards to the sea of trees…  
>She closed her eyes and spread her arms. For seconds on end she was weightless, as if she was still flying… <p>

Then her eyes snapped open and narrowed. The sea of trees was much closer now, and if she waited any longer she´d crash into it, scattered to the winds in an explosion of blood and entrails. 

That was supposed to happen to others. Her victims, preferably. 

Faster than she´d ever done, the Purple Scourge conjured up a magical shield around herself and Kniff. Nothing came through that barrier, and as they crashed into the highest branches they just bounced back, as wood splintered and leaves and birds flew up beneath them. The second impact was already much less severe, and at the third Jinx could let go of her shield, lash out her ropes and dive into the canopy. 

Her speed was still so great for every branch she hit to leave a bloody lash across her skin, but the horde leader could handle that easily. She caught most of the blows with her arms and moved with large strokes of her ropes, with much time between every new move. She narrowed her eyes; she could see the blue lightning. 

A grin appeared on her face. She pulled both her ropes towards her body, flew freely over the heads of the elven soldiers below her, and surrounded herself with a ball of purple fire. The magic screamed through the air like a ballistic projectile from an Imperial catapult, and everywhere elves and Minions looked up. 

Then the violet fireball crashed into the wooden platform where the battle was taking place, high up in the trees; so high the sky was once again visible on the west side. The canopy only curved itself half across the square in the trees. And Lord Sayron was almost standing at the edge, his sword and magic held high in a frozen pose of utmost surprise. 

The purple fire extinguished and took the shape of two flames in the hands of a most familiar girl.

Despite the fact the clash of weaponry was starting to resume on all sides the Overlord kept standing still, his fiery eyes wide. "_Jinx?!_" 

"The one and only, Lord," the horde leader grinned. Kniff let himself slide from her back, but didn´t plunge into battle yet. "It took us a while, but eventually we managed to reach Orntal. Don´t ask how we got rid of that bat," she quickly added, rubbing her neck in slight shame. "The most important thing is we´re going to crush light magic!" 

"Yes," the Overlord spoke hesitantly. "Yes." He wondered how he could ever have thought he´d be better off without Jinx. Maybe he was, but he was still glad to have her back. "But I do want to know how you did it when this is over," he spoke. "You´re not just a Minion, Jinx. I´m glad to see you." 

The fire in the palms of his cousin flared brighter and her grin widened. She didn´t answer, but only nodded at him. Then she was a brown smudge, shooting upwards to the branches above the platform. The Minions that could see her burst into cheering. 

"Lord! I know where the heart of the city is! Follow me and I´ll lead you to Fay!" 

"How…" 

But she was already gone, and Sayron could do nothing else than fight himself through the elves as fast as he could to follow her. He was very much aware of the fact that almost all of his Minions turned away from him and ran or jumped after her. _A turning of tables,_ he thought. _She only needs to show her face and they follow her. All hordes, not just the brown._  
>But that couldn´t worry him now. He couldn´t afford being distracted by the return of the horde leader. <p>

The elves hadn´t expected the Overlord and his hordes to abruptly go the other way, and Sayron could defend himself simply by raising a shield to the arrows. The few warriors that were still standing in his way he just rammed aside without much ado, or flung them over the railings of the platform. 

He´d thought he´d found the heart of the city as he´d seen the platform. He´d expected to look out over Fay´s palace. It hadn´t worked. The city had turned out to be a maze. But here was his horde leader, risen from the dead, carrying the solution. 

Would it ever stop? 

They rushed through populated areas now, with barely any soldiers to protect the people. The Minions cut open throats and knee tendons to the left and right, and a team of reds and salamanders was bullying a single dryad from the trees. Sayron caught a glimpse of a red Minion with a hook for an arm; interesting… 

He thought he heard the roar of Ruau somewhere below him. He grinned – hopefully the hornbeast was having fun. 

Sayron attributed the much softer, high screech following it to a fairy somewhere nearby.  
>The tree path rolled out before his feet, twisting and turning, rising and falling. Jinx still bounced through the treetops and led both him and the horde. <p>

Then, suddenly, she flew straight up. Sayron struggled to a halt, and his horde spread out around him. At this spot they had the space to do so, as they´d landed on another platform. It overlooked a meadow, dozens of feet lower. 

Sayron stepped to the edge, as his gaze slowly crept up. In the middle of the meadow stood a single tree, taller and broader than he´d ever seen before. The branches in the crown were as thick as the trunks of some trees he´d seen in the forest prior to this moment. Vines and multi-coloured epiphytes whirled around the trunk like green, living nets. Between it all, a spiralling path let all the way up, to that mighty crown, where even from here a domed roof was visible. Below that roof a weak, sputtering light glowed. 

…_Sayron…_

"I´m coming," he muttered. 

"Lord…" 

He turned his gaze away from the tree´s crown and briefly looked to the side, to where Jinx was squatting on the railing of the platform. The horde leader pointed down. "This is not going to be easy." 

The Overlord looked down. Only one path led to the winding stairs around the tree, and that path led through a lake enclosing the entire tree. The shores of the lake and the path were surrounded by mangroves, their angular roots spreading like cages. 

Even from this height Sayron could see the countless ripples in the lake. The water was dark, but he saw the pale forms just below the surface. Orange tails sometimes slapped the water, and as he looked on a broad face emerged, with inky black eyes. 

That path wasn´t the safest way to cross a lake. But it was the only way. 

The elves knew so too. 

Straight below the platform lay a clearing, but there were so many spears pointing up it seemed to be overgrown with pointy tallgrass. Amidst the spear-carriers dryads writhed like snakes, and they were already gathering below the spot where Sayron was standing. 

The Overlord clenched his jaws and looked back to the light below the crown of the largest tree. "This can´t be done in an organised way. Get me up there. Getting down, it´s everyone for himself." 

Jinx nodded. "Certainly, Lord." She looked past him to the horde and grinned. The Minions were busy already. 

The reds and greens were the first to descend, making effortless use of their mounts. The flaming salamanders and featherweight spiders were down before Jinx herself had been able to move. Some blues simply dropped down, to thud onto the forest floor in broken heaps, but others of their clan clung to the spider riders or the browns sliding from the trees by their claws. Once on the forest floor they healed and resurrected the rest. 

As a fight broke out in the circle where the Minions had landed, Jinx looked back to Sayron.

The Overlord walked along the railing and let his eyes slide over the surroundings. There didn´t seem to be any means for him to descend. Eventually he shrugged, formed a spherical shield around his body and jumped over the railing, to land with a mighty collision.

Elves and dryads were flung away to all sides. 

Jinx followed him, not a heartbeat later. "That´s another way of doing it, Lord!" 

"Inspired by my horde leader," the Overlord grinned. "Come on!" He swung his sword round in broad circles, and every swing caused more blood to splatter around, across the rest of the warriors. The duo had landed a little way from the Minions, so they had to rely upon each other, but that hadn´t posed much of a problem before. Sayron and Jinx lined up back to back and fought with a bloodthirst and menace causing their circle to widen up soon enough. 

Jinx jumped over the first bodies, surrounded herself with purple fire and caused a series of explosions among the elves so a new line of circles, filled with heaps of bodies, was formed. As she landed again she drew her own sword and started hacking a path towards the Minions, who in their turn had spread out considerably in a messy explosion of fire, silk and glistening metal. 

Then a mighty roar resounded, accompanied by the breaking of immense branches, and a rough, horned form rushed through the undergrowth and onto the meadow. 

"Ruau!" Sayron called out. His eyes lit up, and he kicked four elves out of the way to get closer to the hornbeast. Not two heartbeats later the Overlord hoisted himself onto the broad back, and as the hornbeast swung his head around the elven soldiers spontaneously seemed to lose some morale. 

Further away Jinx looked back, that short time span she could afford to be distracted without being impaled on a spear. Her eyes widened. A hornbeast? _The_ hornbeast? 

It seemed Sayron, too, had gotten the mount he´d desired. 

As she ripped open a blond elf´s soft throat with the sharp spikes on her ropes she grinned at the coincidence, and the connection between their two acquisitions. During her flights with Zephyros she´d noticed the giant bat had a favourite prey. He absolutely had a tendency to land on hornbeasts more often than other animals. She was glad the flyer had returned to the cave…

**Maraxus: Ah glorious battle. Oh if I was there.**

**Gnarl: You can't fight and you don't command Minions so what good would you do?**

**Maraxus: I'd help by giving inspiring speeches and providing tactical suggestions.**

**Gnarl: Which you can do from here thanks to the pool.**

**Maraxus: Yeah, but being there would be way cooler.**

**Gnarl: It seems Jinx is proving as resilient as ever.**

**Maraxus: She's a tough young lady alright. If she wasn't the Overlord's cousin I would've asked her out a long time ago.**

**Gnarl looks at the human: She could crush you with one hand.**

**Maraxus: Your point?**

**Gnarl: I'm sure there are far better candidates for her than you.**

**Maraxus frowns: Oh shut up Gnarl. Anyway, please review readers. Till next time.**


	32. Shade Lady Part 2

**A body is flung over the edge of the Netherworld palace banister and dangled from a chain which is held by Jinx.**

**Jinx: You promised!**

**General Herbison: I swear to you I'm sorry! I've been busy and forgot about my promise. For the love of fudge and British tea woman pull me in!**

**Jinx: You swore you would never let this happen again.**

**General: I would drop to my knees and beg you for forgiveness as well as your creator if I weren't dangling above a lava drop.**

**Jinx: I will leave you there for the chapter and see about bringing you back up.**

**General watches as Jinx walks away: Oh come on I'm sorry! Bah, okay disclaimer time every inch of this story and all the OCs were created by the most lovely Sunjinjo on deviantart. Enjoy**

**Shade Lady Part 2**

In the meantime Sayron used the massive weight of his mount to free a path to the shores of the lake. From the ground it was an imposing view; the murky water outstretched to all sides, but was largely obscured by hundreds of mangrove root systems. The treetops above the water cast ominous shadows across the surface.

Above it all rose Fay´s tree palace. From here, that massive crown overshadowed everything. Paths and stairs ran along the trunk, and smaller homes had been embedded in it. In the shadow of the highest branches golden lights zipped around like fireflies. 

Ruau rammed his way through the last elven army, determined to reach the bridge. Two dryads swept their vines towards him, but he gave a tug with his head as soon as they wrapped themselves around his horns, so they lost their balance and were helplessly dragged to Sayron. The Overlord decapitated the first, and ripped open the second, from her neck to the roots. White sap burst from their bodies and splattered on his armour.  
>Then he was on the bridge. Ruau´s hooves thundered on wooden boards, and the echo resounded from the water´s surface beneath. Every few meters, the bridge was supported by thick poles, some rising above Sayron´s head and crowned with glowing crystals. <p>

Behind him the first Minions wrestled themselves free from the battle and ran after him. Some spiders started to weave a web between the high poles with lightning speed, slowing the elves and dryads. Jinx popped from the chaos like a cork from a bottle, soon followed by Kniff, and the duo positioned themselves in exceptionally aggressive postures to hold off everyone and everything foolish enough to try and get to the bridge. All that mattered now was that Sayron got to Fay as soon as possible. 

The Overlord saw her looking back to him. Then she became too occupied with the battle to waste time with anything else. 

Then something rammed itself into his chest with such force he suddenly wasn´t sitting on his mount any longer, but rolled backwards across the bridge. Cold water sprayed into his face. He stared up, into inky black eyes. 

Then the mermaid yanked him off the boards, into the water.

Most of the blues had positioned themselves along the edges of the battle, just outside the violence, to be able to dive to fallen Minions and drag them out of the battle as fast as they could. Soaker and Miko watched over the healings and resurrections with vigilant eyes, and only a few blues had tried their luck on the bridge. 

Drip was one of those daring few. 

This blue didn´t feel much like routinely dragging dead and wounded Minions around. This blue was always ready for a scrap, and as he wasn´t very good at fighting he had the habit of simply going where the action was. And indeed, there was always action to be found around Sayron. 

Right now he and his handful of clan members dove after their Master, into the shadowy water. The surface was a mass of foam and violently thrashing tails now – Sayron didn´t go down without a fight. 

Below the surface things weren´t much better. Drip shut his translucent third eyelid, though it wouldn´t matter much if the mermaids would attack him. Then he thrust himself forward with webbed feet and webbed tail at once, and shot to the center of the frenzy. The other blues followed suit. 

What followed was a whirl of twisting bodies, scales, gleaming blue skin and needle-sharp teeth. Those teeth didn´t all belong to the mermaids, however. 

In the water the blues were quite a bit more capable than on land. Drip unhinged his jaw, shot forward and closed his fish-catching teeth around the back of a mermaid´s neck. The creature jolted, tried to yank herself loose, and was immediately grasped by the arms and tail by more Minions. Light pink blood flowed into the dark water. Drip grinned into his bite, yanked with his head and tore off a piece of skin and flesh. More blood followed. He could _taste_ it, and he liked it. 

In the meantime more blues joined them in the lake; Sayron seemed to be more important than the fight on the shore. The Overlord clawed himself to the surface and towards the bridge. A mermaid closed her webbed hand around his boot, but he kicked her away and several blues already dragged her down. 

The lake slowly turned pink.

Sayron stood still on the bridge for a moment, dripping and panting, and staring down into the frothing water. Every now and then a blue or orange tail came to sight, but the view wasn´t very clear. The light mermaid blood didn´t leave much room for doubt, however. The Minions were winning. 

That did mean there weren´t many healers left on the shore. 

He´d have to hurry. He had an advantage in the lake now; it was a good idea to move with it. 

"Advance!" he roared to the battlefield behind him. "Hold them off at the bridge; half of the brown and red hordes follow me!" 

Immediately several salamanders broke loose and shot onto the bridge, barely slipping underneath the many webs the spiders had woven. The browns flung themselves around the poles, over the water, causing some to fall in and having to be kicked out by helpful blues. 

Jinx looked back once more. Sayron was running away from her very fast. "And me, Lord?"

She knew he didn´t always consider her part of the brown horde.

"Stay there! Defend the bridge!" 

"Okay!" She turned back, just in front of the large spider webs, and tightened her grip on her magic. The webs behind her were already filled with elves, shot full of holes by her or mauled by the greens and the makers of the webs themselves. The odd individual that did come through or around the webs came eye to eye with the rest of the green clan. With only a few elves at a time the greens couldn´t do anything wrong. 

Now however, with the more aggressive hordes largely removed from the battlefield, their task became a bit harder. Jinx slightly bent her knees and grinned grimly. Oh, how she wished Zephyros was with her, if only on the ground. His mighty jaws would make short work of anything Orntal could throw at her… 

…but now it was just her and the elves, her sword, her ropes and magic, and the bloody, drawn-out moments after Sayron had gone were filled with flashing metal, sharp pain and screaming, not all of it from the enemy. 

Spiders flung themselves forward from behind the webs. Some immediately jumped into the spears and fell down with spasming legs. Others climbed to the tops of the poles on the bridge and let their silk float over the battlefield, so elven soldiers became covered with sticky threads and weapons were entangled with hands and victims. The Minions were shorter and weren´t touched by the floating threads as easily, and even then it made little difference for their bloodlust. It was a good rule of thumb that the less Minions one had on a battlefield, the more lust for murder each of them displayed. The clans sometimes almost liked to be driven into a corner. 

And there was Kniff, covered in superficial wounds but covered in blood nonetheless. His ears were flattened, his eyes narrowed and all his teeth bared in an almost insane grin. As Jinx let her eyes rest on him for a fraction of a second he zipped open an elf´s stomach with a single stroke of his dagger, and the victim desperately clawed at his insides before the Minion jumped up and slit his throat. 

The horde leader grinned and blinked blood from her own eyes. 

The fall of light magic wasn´t without trouble. But what a wonderful fight it was.

As he was very much aware of the wild frenzy behind him, Sayron and Ruau thundered across the bridge, diving and dodging to steer clear of the mermaids. Every now and then the Overlord wildly stabbed away from the back of his hornbeast, but most of the time the mermaids were dragged back by the overwhelming amounts of blues. Almost all the blues he´d taken with him had to be in the lake by now, and they´d become completely different creatures – he hadn´t expected their jaws to stretch that far, or their ferocity to be there at all. He hadn´t really seen the clan fight at all before now. He silently admitted Gnarl had been right; even after all this time, the Minions could still surprise him. 

He looked up. He was almost directly below the gigantic palace tree now, partly visible through the mangrove leaves, and the path almost started to slope up. He cast a last glance back and then shut out the screaming from the shore. Now he had to… 

…he came to such an abrupt standstill it took him a while to realize it. 

He´d been thrown off Ruau´s back because the hornbeast had run into something, hard enough for it to resemble a brick wall. Sayron scrambled up and raised his head.  
>In front of him the path led up. There was nothing to be seen. <p>

A shield. 

He rammed his fist into the empty air and hit a rigid surface. His eyes narrowed. Fay had companions… of course. 

Around him lightning bloomed up. The Overlord raised his arms and then outstretched them forward, so the magic could stream from his hands to the shield. The force field flickered and briefly became visible, like a wall covered in glistening streams. 

"Let me through," he growled. "The Queen is calling me." 

As his magic kept streaming off him some blues hoisted themselves from the water and joined their abilities with his, so strands of blue sparks wrapped themselves around the lightning bolts. The shield dulled. Eventually Sayron rammed an impatient fist in and pulled the hole open with both hands. A moment later he wrung himself through with brute force.  
>As he ran up the spiralling path, the magic fell away behind him. The elves probably concentrated on the area in front of him now, a hunch confirmed as the air ahead started to glisten, but Sayron was too quick for them. Every time a shield was about to take form he burst through with lightning and force, before it could harden. <p>

Minions started to come after him. The red Minions sent their salamanders up across the tree trunk, and sometimes took browns along with them. Behind them was the occasional group of elves. Jinx´ defence started to give out… but the elves didn´t usually reach Sayron alive, and if they did he only had to turn and fall out with his weapon. 

It was at a moment he did precisely that when he suddenly heard a strange zooming sound behind him. He quickly turned back, so he dragged the elf along on his sword and crushed his skull beneath Ruau´s hooves. Just in time to see an arrow of golden light zipping towards him. Without thinking, Sayron thrust his hand forward and covered the projectile in blue lightning. It stopped almost immediately, and barely a second later it burst apart in a rain of sparks. But with the same speed half a dozen new arrows appeared around the bend of the tree trunk, and they were aimed for the Minions too – the magically defenceless Minions. 

Sayron grinned grimly and sheathed his sword. He was going to need both his hands.

Jinx looked back for the briefest moment. There were very strange sounds from the direction of the tree. From here, it looked like Nordbergian fireworks. 

She hoped Sayron wouldn´t be needing her help. If he did, the mist pool would do well by letting Gnarl communicate with her. 

She´d constructed a shield blocking the bridge by now, as the elves had largely escaped the Minions and were now focusing on her. In the last few minutes she´d been able to picture Minion after Minion floating into the Well, and she hoped Sayron would be willing to get them back. The strongest and most fortunate now tried to start fights at the edges of the elven mass, but they weren´t very successful. The green defenders and their spiders behind Jinx weren´t having much luck either. The Purple Scourge now relied purely on her magic and concentration to keep the shield up. 

One of the frontmost elves almost pressed his face to hers. Only the magical barrier separated them. 

The elf drew his sword. Then he rammed his free hand to the shield and Jinx felt all power being drained from it. 

A mage. And her own magic was no match for his. 

In her shock Jinx was powerless to defend herself that quickly. The elf wiped her shield aside and plunged his sword into her stomach. Their faces were still only inches apart – his hard, hers crumpled with disbelief and pain. A small trickle of blood emerged from her mouth as she gasped. 

Then the elf pulled back his sword, he pushed her aside so she rolled off the muddy shore and into the lake – and Fay´s army stormed across the bridge, after a short pause at the greens and their spiders, and after Sayron.

Sayron tried to move with Ruau´s body the best he could, and catch the light arrows the elves sent towards him from above. A few of them had avoided his counterattacks and had struck him, but so far the hornbeast was unharmed, and it carried the Overlord to the top of the palace tree with raging speed. Sayron was panting heavily, but the muscles in his arms were hardened. He looked up and saw the elegant shapes of Fay´s palace, rising up high in the canopy. Hanging curtains of flowers and maroon purple leaves restricted his view, but he knew her sky-blue light was shining there somewhere. 

His eyes flashed. He was so close. He batted away another light arrow and clenched his jaws. 

The Minions almost caught up with him and now formed a protective group behind Ruau. That was a good thing, too, the Overlord suddenly realized. His heart skipped a beat as he saw what was coming across the bridge now, there in the deep – it seemed Jinx and the others had given out, for the boards were invisible though a dirty green horde of leaf-clad elves. 

The enormous trunk of the palace tree blocked his sight a few times as he circled it. The elves were fast, but he´d be at the top way before them… 

…and then that moment arrived. 

Pinned between the spreading branches of the crown was a broad platform, surrounded by lush curtains of blue and maroon flowers on all sides. Wooden walls indicated the borders of the palace – but Sayron realized they were no walls, but open structures of living wood, interwoven with all kinds of other life. Fay´s throne was covered by a wooden dome, but there were no real walls separating her from the outer world. A soft blue glow shone out through the holes in the foliage. 

The throne itself was a modest seat, but the back exploded into gleaming vines, brightly coloured epiphytes and entwining branches in every shade of green. It was empty, however.  
>Sayron´s eyes flashed to the side, to the point where the blue glow was coming from. The light was weaker than he remembered. <p>

Fay lay on a cloth-covered wooden bench, her eyes closed. She was surrounded by about five elves, and it was clear these were the nobles of Orntal. Clad in the richest fabrics and crowned with slender headpieces, their ranking was probably just below the Queen.  
>Well, Orntal would be under one absolute ruler soon anyway. <p>

"Boys." Sayron gave a gesture of his head and unsheathed his own sword as the Minions positioned themselves around him. "Deal with them." 

A reptilian hiss went up as the palace was bathed in a red glow. Salamanders with red riders came in through the walls. For a moment the hordes were all sharp-fanged grins. Then it rained fire and the weapons of the browns were silvery streaks in Fay´s blue light.  
>Sayron rapidly dismounted, jumped forward and skewered an elven noble on his sword before he could release his magic again. His free hand outstretched towards the Queen, and before the elves could do anything at all, a thread of lightning connected his fingers to her forehead. <p>

Her eyes snapped open. They were emerald green.

**(OVER TO JINX)**

Blood in the water. 

There was blood in the water… in the water of the lake filled with mermaids. 

Jinx lay on her belly in the shallows, her head just above the surface, as her blood streamed from her gaping wound into the lake in large clouds of dark red. Her fingers moved slightly, but that was all she could do; the closest to an attempt to claw herself from the water. 

A few yards further the bridge resonated with the pounding of hundreds of feet. The grey eyes were half opened and saw the elven army through a haze of pain and blood loss, but Jinx knew she´d failed. They´d reach Sayron and he wouldn´t be able to handle them. 

Something was approaching. 

The Purple Scourge tried to roll over, but she was exhausted and had lost too much blood to as much as push herself away against the sandy bottom of the lake. 

The water rippled as a swimming shape came to a halt next to her. Teeth were bared. 

And disappeared again as Drip pushed his jaw back to where it belonged, and lay a webbed hand on Jinx´ back with a pitiful smile. "Hello, Jinx." 

As the healing magic wound its way around her waist and went to work on her stomach wound, the horde leader took a deep breath. "…Drip…?" 

"Easy now. This needs some time, I can´t bring back the blood." 

"We lost…" Jinx felt tears come up as she said it. Her eyes rolled up slowly. The elves were running around the tree now. 

Then, suddenly, an intense light pierced the leafy crown. Drip´s eyes widened and he started grinning. 

"I wouldn´t say that too soon," he spoke, and patted Jinx´ shoulder with his free hand. "It´s Sayron´s turn now."

The tree palace was a blinding sea of light. 

The elven nobles were almost all dead, lying shattered on the floor. The ones that were still alive looked up with breaking eyes, as blood seeped from the corners of their mouths. In the heart of Fay´s bastion, in the heart of the razing storm of light that tore down the walls and ripped away the canopy before their eyes, stood a huge dark form shielding half of the light with his body. 

In his arms lay the unconscious form of their queen, but as the elves looked on the force of the mixing magic lifted her up, so she came to float in front of him, upright. Her hair came loose from its intricate braids and whirled wildly around her head. Her shoulder pieces resembled wings more than ever before. 

Sayron seemed frozen, too enraptured by the sight to even shield his eyes from the light. Both his hands were crackling with lightning. The bolts outstretched directly to Fay and fed the storm of light around her. 

The elven queen closed her eyes. 

The bolts connecting Sayron´s hands with her faltered and disappeared. 

And the tree palace burst apart in an explosion of wood, vines, Minions and the lifeless bodies of the elven nobles. Sayron was blown backwards, clawed his gauntlets into the wooden floor to keep in place and clung on for dear life. As the shockwave died away he looked up slowly, lying stretched out on the floor, surrounded by burning debris and a few yards from the place where Fay was standing… 

…proud and upright like the queen she was. 

Her hair was no longer black with a luminous blue glow. It was red, like blood, like fire, and fluttering in the heat of the real flames around her. Her skin was still pale, but no longer radiating with elven magic; now it had a royal gleam of porcelain. Her richly crafted dress no longer seemed to be woven from tangible light, it was black, and dark wings appeared to rise up from her shoulders. 

She opened her eyes. Gone was the heavenly blue, gone was the emerald green. Her eyes were a golden yellow and they gleamed like those of a beast of prey in the fiery light. 

As she smiled at him smoothly Sayron knew he´d won his queen. She was his, and his alone. 

He barely registered it as running footsteps resounded behind him, wrestling up from ground level. It was a true army of elves, but nothing in the world would had been able to pry his eyes off Fay at this moment. 

The queen did see what was appearing behind Sayron, and she placed one slender, pale hand on her hip. Her smile didn´t change. 

"Queen Fay…!" The first elves ran into the remains of the tree palace, and came to a stumbling halt as they saw what happened, and what had become of their queen. 

Fay lifted her chin. "My loyal subjects." Her smile widened. "Or should I say, our subjects. Sayron, my love, stand up. This doesn´t suit you." 

The Overlord stared at her for a moment and then scrambled up. Fay beckoned him, and as if hypnotized he stepped towards her. She lay a hand on his arm. "Meet your new ruler." 

The frontmost elf fell to his knees, but his eyes were empty. Swords and spears clattered to the ground, but it wasn´t an act of acceptance – these hands went limp out of despair and disbelief. 

"_No…_" 

Fay narrowed her gleaming golden eyes. "Yes. As the last descendant of the royal line I command you to accept him as king of the elves… and ruler of Orntal and the rest of Everlight." 

"No, no, no!" 

The desperate, defeated cry descended along the burning palace tree, further and faster as the news reached more elves. The realization came quickly. Fay was all they had left, and in combination with Sayron she was too powerful to attack without massive losses. They couldn´t kill her. They had no choice. It was over. 

And as the news reached the ground and the elves´ defeat was complete, an enormous raspy cheer rose from the clearing where the Minions had been fighting. Blues launched themselves from the water in joy, bloodied weapons were raised and even Jinx managed a broad grin, though she was paler than Fay. Kniff had joined her by now, and he and Drip hoisted her up carefully. As the two Minions supported her, the horde leader looked up at the tree palace, her eyes full of expectation. 

It was far away, but the flames illuminating the torn treetop made it quite clear. Sayron was standing there, enormous and unmistakable. He raised his right hand high, and with that also the arm of the woman whose hand he was holding; a figure at least as dark as he was, with wild red hair. 

A queen, more than worthy of the Netherworld. 

Sayron and Fay looked at each other briefly, amidst the spreading fire. A familiar voice chuckled, close to the Overlord´s ear_. "Congratulations, Sire. I´ve sent Grubby to dig some Tower Gates, as Orntal will be turned to ashes soon."  
><em> 

Sayron looked around. "Can´t I do something about it?" 

_"Make a man a fire and you'll keep him warm for a night, set a man on fire and you'll keep him warm for the rest of his life,"_ Gnarl philosophized with an audible grin. _"Why would you, Lord?"  
><em> 

"Good point." The Overlord grinned at the elves. "As the new king of Orntal I command you to get as far away from the city as you can. Do be ready when I need to call upon you for battle. The war against the Empire continues for you, too." 

Some elves nodded, but there was no real answer. Sayron cocked his head. "I can´t hear you." 

"Yes." 

Sayron snapped his fingers. A lightning orb immediately filled his hand. 

"Yes, my Lord." 

"That´s what I like to hear." The Overlord grinned wider than ever. The orb disappeared, and he raised his arm to the heart of the tree palace. The black spires of a Tower Gate instantly filled the remains of the tree crown. Down at the battlefield the same happened amidst the Minions. 

"I have to go. You´ll manage, won´t you?" Without waiting for an answer Sayron stepped into the blue light, together with his queen.

**(NETHERWORLD)**

And here, deep at the bottom of the Tower, in the very tip reaching down into the earth, like a dark knife stabbing into luminous innards… 

…a steady flood of power streamed into an ancient relic. 

The Tower Heart pulsated with a fiery red light, faster and faster, with no one around to see it. It spun wildly and for a moment flames seemed to flow over its surface. "_Yes,_" a resonating voice whispered, close by and yet far away. "_I am complete… after all those years! My power is renewed!_" 

"_That´s still only one of three._" 

"_Jealousy doesn´t suit you, brother._"

**(NETHERWORLD/ THRONE ROOM)**

Sayron and Fay slowly floated into the throne room. Jinx followed shortly after, but as her boots touched the ground she collapsed. She was quickly carried off by a few Minions, to recover from the battle in her barrack. 

Sayron wasn´t that lucky. He had unfinished business. 

Gnarl stood right in front of the throne, but two other figures descended the stairs on both sides of it, as if it was planned. It did seem as if Kelda and Juno had agreed on something for once, and Sayron shivered briefly – he would rather face the elven army again than telling this news to his Mistresses. 

"Sayron?" Kelda inquired sweetly. "Who´s this, love?" 

Fay exchanged glances with Sayron. "Love?" 

Juno swayed her hips as she approached the duo. "But Lord, what did you bring in this time? An elf? I thought we killed those?" 

"And if you _do_ bring them in you torture them to death," Kelda added, a terrible smile on her face. 

Sayron´s eyes flickered and turned yellow. He wasn´t happy with this at all. And he´d been so cheerful just now. "Kelda, Juno, this is Fay. She´s my new Mistress and she´s going to stay with us." 

Kelda´s green eyes glistened dangerously. "Sayron, I thought I´d been clear; two Mistresses is too many already." 

Juno laughed at her sarcastically. "Don´t listen to that. But dearest, I thought I was the queen here? We don´t need her." 

Sayron clenched his jaws. "I´m the Overlord here. You will do as I say. Fay is my queen and I don´t intend on sending her away." 

"Vessperion´s name, two months ago she had you thrown before that firebreathing monster!" Kelda erupted. "Sayron, she isn´t even human!" 

"_And neither am I!_" the Overlord roared. His eyes flared to a bloody red and he straightened out, so he towered over his first Mistress. Kelda backed away – this was the first time he turned against her this way. "I´ve never been human! If anyone in here is close to me it´s Fay!" He growled deeply and briefly shot a look at Juno, also staring at him with wide eyes.

The two women cowered as he stomped past them and looked at them over his shoulder. "I´ve outgrown you. It´s time I honour my true heritage. You´re no more than toys to me." 

Kelda felt all her anger flow away from her. Her clenched fists fell down her body powerlessly. Tears welled up in her eyes, for the first time since she´d last lost her childhood friend. She´d never cried since then, not when the Empire took her city, not when Borius made her a slave. She´d always loved Sayron, even as he´d brought Juno in. But now… 

"Fay, come with me." The Overlord outstretched his hand, and the pale figure in the black dress took it with royal grace. As they ascended the stairs to the private quarters Kelda and Juno stayed behind as if frozen. Shortly after they sunk to the stairs in front of the throne together. Gnarl wisely turned and shuffled to the lower levels, to contemplate the recent events in his own chambers.

**(EVERLIGHT)**

And on Everlight the flames spread from the palace tree to every corner of Orntal. The elves fled in all directions, not to return for some time… 

…and the smoke was blown towards the sea, over a rock formation bearing a dark cave. Two yellowy brown eyes opened, and large ears swivelled round. Zephyros crawed softly and hoped his rider would return soon… 

**(NETHERWORLD/PRIVATE QUARTERS)**

"I´m proud of you, my Lord. It was the right thing to do." 

Sayron silently looked at Fay, a flaming gaze piercing into her inhuman golden eyes. No, she wasn´t human, she was more than that. He raised a gauntleted hand to caress her cheek, and he studied her face in a way in which he hadn´t ever looked at Kelda or Juno. "Fay…" 

She took his hand between her own. "Soon we´ll crush the Empire together. Solarius will beg you to spare him on his hands and knees, my love." She smiled, with blood-red lips in a pale face. "I can´t wait to prepare myself. We´ll send so many of our warriors to their deaths…" 

Sayron realized that, for the first time, he´d met a woman who could match him in battle. He smiled, and wondered if the same was true in other aspects. Fay seemed to read his mind. "…Come here."

**(NETHERWORLD/MINION BARRACKS)**

"Come here," a weak voice resounded through the rickety barrack. 

The brown Minion turned in the doorway and grinned. Hazy grey eyes were looking at him from the sleeping mat. Jinx was pale and not all of the blood had been successfully removed from her skin and clothes, but she was awake. And faintly smiling. 

Kniff walked over and sat down next to her. "Good fight." 

"Not from my side," the horde leader muttered weakly. "I have to prepare myself better." 

"No need. Next time we fly." 

"You think so?" 

Kniff nodded. "No matter what Master says." 

Jinx blinked, surprised by his defiance. "…Why do you still call him Master then?" 

The Minion opened his mouth, then fell silent. Jinx grinned. "Ha." 

Kniff hid his confusion by shifting towards her some more. Jinx raised an arm and pulled him close. She closed her eyes. For a few minutes neither of them moved, and after a while Kniff realized the exhausted horde leader had quietly fallen asleep. Finally at peace, after the wild trek across Everlight and the even wilder battle. Finally safe. But not for long. 

The Minion looked at the girl, and his smile faded when he realized he´d made a decision. Something no other Minion had ever done. 

"…I follow you."

**General Herbison watches events unfold as he is still dangling from the banister: Oh dearie me.**

**Footsteps echo and the sounds of someone crying reaches his ears.**

**General: Hello?**

**Kelda looks over the banister: Oh it's you. What are you doing down there?**

**General: Ah, well Jinx got a bit unhappy with me. Still love that girl but she is scary.**

**Kelda: All those years, me and Witch-Boy, now he's more interested in his new pet elf.**

**General: Well I don't like her either. I'm a human supporter myself, apart from the Overlord and Jinx of course.**

**Kelda: Would you help me get rid of Fay?**

**General: I will as soon as she gives me a valid reason and if the master does not have an issue.**

**Kelda walks away: She is going down.**

**General: Kelda? Kelda! You forgot someone! Never mind then, anyway any and all readers please leave a comment which I will pass on to Sunjinjo who deserves every scrap of respect possible for this story. See you all next time.**


	33. Last Respite

**General Herbison is still coiled up in a chain and hanging from the banister over the lava stream: Kelda? Juno? Jinx? Gnarl? Anybody?**

**Fay looks over the edge: Oh it is you, human, in your rightful place beneath magic users.**

**General: Listen here you overgrown pixie I was in this place long before you even showed up. So if you would kindly pull me up…**

**Fay left.**

**General: Hello? Hello? Seriously what is with these people. Anyway disclaimer time, this story which is one of the greatest pieces of fiction ever created belongs to Sunjinjo as does her OCs. Overlord itself is not included obviously. Enjoy.**

**Last Respite**

Seas of sand outstretched into every direction.

Light shoes barely sunk away in it, but the Ruborian knew this could change at any moment.

He´d ventured far from the mountains, rocky plateaus and every other form of solid ground, and this was dangerous terrain. Fortunately, that was what he was after.

An endless, parchment-white sky spanned above him. Every trace of moisture had vanished from the bone-dry air. There was no life in sight.

At least, not above ground.

A tremor coursed through the sand. The light footsteps filled up.

The Ruborian briefly held still, but as the tremor created a huge depression where he was standing, he jumped back with lightning speed and raised his hands in defence.

With a deafening roar, a dark, living pillar rose from the sand, completely armoured in bone-tough, impermeable plates. The head was eyeless, but bore rows and rows of teeth in a circular mouth. The creature slightly bent over, as if it was searching for the Ruborian…

"_Bahi_, Lord of Sands," Omari greeted with a low bow. His dark eyes gleamed. He, too, had been searching, and now he had finally found what he´d been looking for.

**(NETHERWORLD/PALACE)**

Vines full of thorns wrapped themselves around the rock formations of the Tower. Toxic, dark flowers with elegantly curling petals opened to the Netherworldly half-light.

Fay, third and most powerful Mistress to the Tower, held her arms up high and let her enormous amount of darkened magic flow. Under her influence the walls of her chambers rapidly covered themselves in foliage reminiscent of the palace she´d left behind, but instead of bright, colourful vegetation these plants were as dark as the black, polished basalt walls. They were just as beautiful, however.

"Pretty," a creaky voice from the doorway agreed.

Fay turned. Her golden eyes narrowed, but she relaxed as she recognized the speaker. "Ah, Gnarl." She´d recently gotten acquainted with the advisor, and they´d gotten along nicely.

The grey Minion shuffled inside and stroked his long, wrinkled fingers over the black velvety petals of a huge flower, just above his head. "This brings back memories," he smiled. "The old Master´s Mistress also created a garden in the Tower, long ago. Fountains, blood-red roses… Sappy, but in a way it fit into Vessperion´s chambers perfectly."

Fay gestured with her fingers and a number of dark chalices lowered themselves from the ceiling. Valves opened, and the first dark pitcher plants of the Netherworld were fully grown within seconds. "To me it´s a reminder of days I was not as wise." She shook her head. "Trying to protect light magic…"

"You didn´t know any better, milady," the advisor grinned. "Believe me, this isn´t the first time Sayron´s magic opens someone´s eyes. However," he added, "it never was in such spectacular fashion as with you. The results are stunning."

Fay´s blood-red lips curled in a smile. "Orntal deserved to burn."

"Right you are," Gnarl agreed tactfully. He´d been wondering how they could add the elves to their troops if they were all running through the jungle in different directions, but hadn´t found a good solution yet. It´d work out eventually, though, he was sure of that.

A few gleaming, dark purple orchids joined the pitchers. "The way he changed my natural power was magnificent," the queen sighed. "That magic is put to so much better use in darkness."

Gnarl briefly stroked his beard. "Milady, forgive me the question, but how did you come to possess so much more power than the average elf? Your father wasn´t extremely gifted as far as I know." He smiled as the images of Oberon´s split tree and broken body came back to him. "Your mother, perhaps?"

"No." Fay turned. "Neither my father nor my mother gave me this power." She smiled again, a gruesome smile that almost made Gnarl hum with appreciation. "I should have known my loyalty lies in darkness long ago. No, my magic is stolen, dear Gnarl, stolen before I was born."

Something clicked into place in the old Minion´s head. "Your brother."

"Florian. Yes. The poor soul has never possessed a single spark of magic in all his days. That´s why he was never a prince, never a king. That´s why the throne went to me without any dispute. That´s why he was never more than a lieutenant and it wasn´t widely known we were even related." The queen´s eyes seemed to glow with merciless glee. "I stole his magic in the womb. As I was born I was already glowing with my own light. I didn´t cry at all, I left that to him." She chuckled. "The first, and probably the last thing he´s done, now he´s been executed in the Arena."

"You´re a most worthy gain for the Netherworld, milady." Gnarl briefly lowered his ears, a grin plastered across his face.

Fay turned back to the flowers. "Yes. Or the other way around."

A few days had passed, and there was someone in the Netherworld who had actually needed those days to recover, for the first time since long. Jinx had never lost as much blood as in the palace lake during the battle for Orntal, and she´d felt weak and shivery for almost a week. Some parts within her had needed some extra healing from the blues, but the night after the battle she´d already been stable again. She hadn´t been able to stand up straight, however, let alone climb, or the one thing she so desperately yearned for by now – fly.

She´d had enough.

The Purple Scourge rose from her mother´s bed. Velvet had insisted she recovered in her chambers and not in the barrack, and had had her brought over almost immediately. Jinx hadn´t expected otherwise – of course the barrack wasn´t comfortable enough, according to her mother, and she´d only get weaker if she´d stay there. In the beginning she´d agreed, but it had only taken one night in that bed to think otherwise.

It was all way too comfortable. The bed was too soft. The food in the Tower was far too refined. To Jinx, it seemed as if she was being smothered with tasteless food and suffocated with too many pillows. She was totally used to thin mats, hard floors and food so fresh it often fought back. After she´d seen the shocked expression on her mother´s face, however, Jinx kept those opinions to herself.

She´d become a Minion, a Minion with long legs and black hair. And she didn´t mind at all.  
>Kniff wasn´t with her – he´d spent the first few days with her, but he was not in the Netherworld to laze around, and Gnarl had quickly called him away to make himself useful. She didn´t know where he was now, but it was fine this way.<p>

The Purple Scourge quietly ascended the stairs up to the higher levels of the Tower, through the dark corridors and hallways, without drawing much attention. Gnarl was all the way upstairs, and Sayron was in one of the arenas where the Minions fought out the pecking order – he´d entirely cleared that level to be able to practice with Ruau after he´d brought the hornbeast to the Netherworld.

Jinx had been jealous of him for days. Now she was going to do what she wanted again.  
>She reached the throne room, outstretched one hand to the portal and spoke one word…<p>

"Orntal."

Lower in the Tower dust and rock chippings streamed off the walls beneath the violence of a giant beast.

The yeti was still in the Netherworld, in a fitted cage where he waited for his Master to unleash him upon the world for a second time. But the yeti kept calm, still completely under Sayron´s domination spell.

The beast shaking the Tower now was under the influence of the same kind of spell, but Sayron allowed him far more freedom than the yeti.

Ruau rolled and stomped, swung his head and pulverized the wooden hurdles set up for him. The hornbeast couldn´t jump very high, but he simply rammed down everything in his way, or he went through it. Sayron´s spell only seemed to have increased his fury.

The Overlord knew this training wasn't exactly meant for the hornbeast, but for him. It took effort to stay seated on the rough back, even with the improved saddle he´d ordered to be made. He wanted to be ready for battle, and he was certain staying on would be even harder then.

There were lots of other things they needed to get ready. He had enough time. He´d be ready when the time came.

He reminded himself of that, not for the first time, as the hornbeast threw up his hind legs so high Sayron flew scarcely past the razor-sharp horns, over Ruau´s head and landed onto the thin layer of sand in the arena with a metallic, resounding clang.

**(SURFACE)**

Orntal was a blackened wasteland.

Jinx forgot to breathe as she climbed out of the Tower Gate in the palace tree, and her feet touched scorched wood. From here she had a great view over the city, or what was left of it.  
>The trees were vertical lines of black and grey, or loose heaps of ash. The wind carried along grey gusts. The tree in which she was standing no longer protectively spread out its crown over Orntal, but clawed at the sky with skeletal branches.<p>

Jinx descended with the aid of her ropes. The path that had spiralled along the trunk a week ago was as good as gone, but her ropes still had a good hold on the tough bark of the palace tree. As she approached the ground, however, she saw not everything down there was devoid of colour.

As she´d swum across the lake surrounded by a shield and set foot to solid ground in the charred city, the Purple Scourge kept standing for a moment and let the incredible power of the rainforest sink in.

A week ago, Orntal had burned. Already, new, bright green shoots were emerging everywhere, and here and there the occasional red or purple flower had even opened. Young plants no longer needed to struggle for a place in the sun. This part of the forest would recover extremely fast.

No Overlord would ever completely control Everlight. Jinx smiled, content with that thought as she ploughed through the pale ash and took care not to step on any young plants.

As her attention was on the ground, she suddenly noticed a flash in the corner of her eye, a bit further away in the ash. Jinx diverted from her course and knelt down, to dig the reflecting object from the ash.

As she raised it in her hand, she frowned. "Hm? …Strange…"

It was a coin – and not just any coin. This was an aureus, an Imperial golden coin of the highest value. Solarius´ face was on it, unmistakably, turned to the right and an image of nobility, an engraved laurel wreath around his head.

Still squatting, with the coin in her hand, Jinx looked around. She wasn´t far from the palace tree yet, but the coin probably didn´t come from Fay´s palace. Did soldiers get here earlier?

No, the city would no longer have existed by the time they´d arrived…

"Riddles." Jinx tucked the coin away and stood up. She´d have to think this over some more later.

She reached the shore without much trouble. The charred, flaking forest was a sad sight and she was covered in ash up to her thighs by the time she reached the beach, but the green shoots lent enough colour to the dead jungle. Jinx couldn´t wait to see what it would look like in a few weeks.

Rock formations rose up on all sides, here at the edge of the island. She only ever reached the one she was looking for from the sky, but Jinx knew exactly where to go. A few minutes later she stood at the base of her own golden sandstone colossus, but the cave she sought lay so high she could barely see it from the ground.

Jinx put her hands to her mouth. "Zephyros!"

Her voice echoed off the sandstone walls. The sea rushed behind her, as if the water mocked her.

"_Zephyros!_"

A rustling, so faint and overpowered by the wind she could barely hear it, drifted down. Jinx put her hands on her hips. "Come on, I know you´re there, you´re always lazing around at this time of day."

Then, finally, a pointy-eared head appeared above the lip of the cave. Zephyros stared down for a moment, but then he spread his enormous, sun-eclipsing wings, to float down and land on the beach in an explosion of flying sand. Jinx backed away and coughed until the cloud of sand disappeared, but then she flew around the bat´s neck. As she´d left him in quite a hurry he was still wearing his saddle.

"I´ll remove that gear later, but now I want to fly – Zeph, come on!" Laughing, she swung over the broad, hairy shoulders and buckled herself in place. She´d barely finished doing so as the flight muscles below her started working. This wasn´t the easiest way of taking off, but Jinx knew the bat could do it. She still vividly remembered how he´d escaped the Arena in the exact same way, and like then, huge masses of sand were thrown up by his wingbeat.

They rose above the beach, slow and unstable at first, but then fast and sure. Soon Zephyros spiraled upwards, and they ascended along the rock formation, past the cave and above it, above the entire formation, above the world.

After a drawn-out week in bed this was so wonderful Jinx could do little else but grin, bent over Zephyros´ neck as their speed forced tears from her eyes.

They soared across the ocean together, back over the beach in a wide arch and past the burnt areas in and around Orntal. The fire had been fierce, but the forest had been soaked in mist and dew even in the afternoon, and the damage didn´t stretch too far outside the city.

Unbroken rainforest lay below them.

The bat kept rising for a little while longer, and a few moments later the only sound at this altitude was the heavy flapping of his wings. The edges of the membranes fluttered in the battle against the wind he was fighting every moment. Jinx closed her eyes, tensed her muscles and spread her arms just above the gigantic wings.

"I´m going to make you a saddle, a real saddle," she promised the bat. "One that doesn't shift along your back. And I´m going to practice with you." She didn´t allow herself to think of the reason to do so. The battle for Arcadiopolis on his back was a dream, but one worth keeping. "We´ll be fast, and agile, and deadly…"

Zephyros seemed to listen intently, and his ears never stopped moving, one of them pointed at her at all times.

**(NETHERWORLD)**

Speed…

The hornbeast thundered through the arena, kicking up sand and pounding craters into the rock beneath it as he came down more violently than usual. Minions were watching from the alcoves higher in the walls, but none of them dared coming down. That was a good idea. Ruau was unpredictable towards everyone who wasn´t an Overlord.

Agility…

Turning and heaving, ramming and kicking. Every swing of the head could indicate a different direction for the path of destruction to continue.

Deadliness…

At this moment, being touched by Ruau meant certain death. Sayron was seated a bit more surely now, on average, but it didn´t take long before his mount made a move that was too sudden for him again and he was flung forward, after which Ruau could only stop just in time.

Or rather, just too late. His one horn had dented Sayron´s breastplate inward so deep the Overlord wheezed for breath. As he ripped the piece of armour off his body, blood dripped from between his fingers, and a few blues rushed forward to heal him immediately.

"Enough for today," Sayron decided as the wound shrunk to a gleaming scar on his broad chest. He inspected his damaged breastplate. "Giblet will have to replace that." Briefly, the thought the forge master might have a bit too many orders pending crossed his mind, but then again, that was what Minions were for.

The Overlord left the piece of metal and walked up the stairs to the throne room with an exposed chest. He left the task of calming and securing Ruau for the Minions as well.

**(NETHERWORLD/FORGE)**

Giblet was busy. Very busy.

He was as good as finished with his first big project, but now the Master had thrown two other huge projects on top of it. Luckily for now, the Minion did not yet know a third was about to arrive.

Sayron had demanded armour for Ruau, and that was no small task. Giblet had started measuring and designing like mad. He could leave the forging itself largely to his helpers, but he wouldn´t be the forge master if he wasn´t constantly circling around all anvils at once, inspecting and correcting wherever he went. He prayed to every unholy god he knew that everything would be finished in time.

Next to the hornbeast´s armour, Sayron and Gnarl had made plans for siege weapons – huge machines for the Netherworld itself. The Overlord had once hijacked the catapults and ballistae of the Empire, but according to him those days were over. He refused to rely on the enemy any longer. And so Giblet focused, between everything else, upon beams of Nordbergian pine, huge amounts of leather designed to carry the boulders, and the boulders themselves, mined from the hard black walls of the Netherworld itself. Together with Grubby, the digger taking care of the Tower Gates, he tried to think of a way to get the whole machines to the upper world when the Master would need them. They didn´t have a real solution yet, but according to the digger it should be possible if more magic would be supplied to the gates.

Now the forge master staggered back to his own humongous anvil, and let his clawed finger glide over his original, giant masterpiece. Cruelly curved, razor-sharp protrusions, arranged around the end like a crown, enclosing a flaming red jewel. A leather-wrapped, two-handed grip. Growling skulls halfway down the length. Ancient runes circled around the weapon, and there was quite a lot to cover. This would be the largest weapon Giblet had ever created for a Master. Better than an axe, better than a sword. This crushing mace would unleash hell on the battlefield.

**(NETHERWORLD/PALACE)**

The Overlord climbed the last few steps and entered the throne room. He hadn´t even turned to his throne before he was startled by a sudden, huge blue glow, coming from the portal on the ceiling. With a mighty crack an azure bolt of lightning struck the black marble floor, and as Sayron lowered his hands a familiar figure came to sight, still sparking from the journey.

"Jinx?"

The horde leader wiped her hair from her face. "Hello, Lord. Is everything alright?" she asked with a glance at his chest.

"It´s nothing," the Overlord said bluntly. "Jinx, where have you been? I didn´t know you´d gotten out of bed."

Jinx looked up, into his face. "Er… Everlight, Lord. I´m fine, thanks."

"What were you doing on Everlight? I don´t recall giving you any orders."

Jinx´ mind raced. Now Sayron was looking at her with such a sharp gaze and being so strict about his orders, it seemed like an even worse idea to start about Zephyros. "I… I thought I might find another herd of hornbeasts, Lord. Ruau´s such a good addition, more of his kind could maybe…"

"No," Sayron interrupted. "There won´t be any more hornbeasts."

"Why not? Is he being that difficult?"

Sayron´s eyes darkened slightly. "That´s not the problem. Ruau is mine and mine alone. I´ll be the only one to ride a hornbeast. Who else would do that in the battle for Arcadiopolis? Minions? Ruborians? You?" That last part came out unexpectedly sharp, but Sayron didn´t take back his words.

"I´m not suggesting that…"

"Good." Sayron lowered himself to the throne. "Now we´re talking about this, are you planning on picking a mount when we attack?"

Jinx hesitated. "…A wolf, Sire."

"Fitting for the leader of the brown horde." Sayron´s eyes rippled in a smile. "Rest some more, Jinx. You still look tired."

"I will, Lord," the horde leader nodded quietly. She walked out of the throne room with her head held high, but it was hard to mask the fact her heart had sunken into her boots.

Once outside, with a view of the Netherworld and the spinning rocks around the Tower, Jinx kept standing on the jutting platform. Then she swiped out a rope, upwards, and climbed up along the Tower with almost feral movements, to remain sitting on her favourite protruding spire. Height didn´t affect her, not here.

A wolf.

She didn´t want a wolf. She wanted Zephyros. But it was clear Sayron would never allow that. He made no secret of the fact he wanted to tower above everybody else, he wanted the most impressive mount. If she arrived on the battlefield with a giant bat… a flyer, bigger than Ruau, worse, Ruau´s natural enemy…

It would never be possible.

"I´m still going to make that saddle," she muttered, her chin resting on her knees, absent-mindedly following a broad, frothing stream of water from a tunnel high up in the cavern´s wall to the slightly glowing void below. "This doesn´t mean I no longer have a personal mount on Everlight anymore. I love him." She smiled as she spoke those words out loud. _I hadn´t ever expected the ones I love most in this world to be a Minion and a bat._

"Jinx?"

She jolted and looked around in bewilderment for a moment. Then her eyes lingered on a window in the tower wall behind her, one of the smaller, glassless openings. A familiar face looked back at her from the Tower.

"Kelda?"

"Hi." The ginger Mistress smiled, but there was no happiness in her eyes. "What are you doing up here?"

"I could ask you the same," Jinx countered. "How are you? I haven´t seen you since…" She gave it a thought. "Too long."

Kelda´s smile vanished. "I´m leaving, Jinx."

The horde leader´s eyes widened. "What?! No!"

"Sayron has a new Mistress. He´s rejected me."

"He´d never… what did he say?"

Kelda looked away briefly. "I´m no more than a toy to him now Fay´s waltzed in."

"And you let him say that? Kelda, you´ve punched him before."

"You didn´t see him. He seemed possessed." The Nordbergian Mistress leant out of the window forlornly, and Jinx shifted to a more comfortable position on the jutting rock. "Fay´s changed him, it seems."

Jinx thought back to the way he´d spoken to her. "I´ve noticed, too." Her head spun. Kelda, gone? "But… where would you go?"

Kelda shrugged. "Somewhere around Nordberg. Not the city itself, it´s his now. I´ll manage in the wild."

"We need you, Kelda. I´d miss you."

"You´d be able to find me," the Mistress smiled.

"He didn´t say you had to leave. Please, stay. Things can still change. Fay thinks she´s so high and mighty, but maybe he´ll tire of that." Jinx looked away briefly, then back into the green eyes. "This is where it all happens, Kelda. This is where the action is. Give the Netherworld another chance. I didn´t regret it when I did."

The first Mistress kept silent for a long time. Eventually she looked up again. "Alright then."

A wide grin appeared on Jinx´ face. "Really?"

"Yes. You´re right, the Netherworld is too interesting. That, and I´d miss you." She fell silent. "And I´m tired of Nordberg for the rest of my life." Another short pause. "But I am going to arm myself in earnest."

"Giblet´s very busy," Jinx warned her.

"I don´t need him. I´ll just go to the Minion armoury," Kelda winked. "If it was good enough for you, it´ll certainly do for me."

"You´re reminding me of something," the horde leader grinned. "I have something to pick up there, too…"

**(MINION BARRACKS)**

A strange clicking resounded around the webs of the green Hive, and it were no spider fangs.

A leathery, brown-skinned hand plucked a writhing maggot from the ground and tossed it into a basket, just next to him. The clicking stopped for a moment and then continued at the same pace.

Black silk flowed from small spinnerets out of the basket and towards the hand´s owner. From the other side white silk emerged from a slightly more conventional source, being the spinnerets at the abdomen of an Everlightian giant spider. Letho, to be exact.

Kniff was sitting near the bottom of the web system, busy with Ramul´s spider and his little green spider Minions. They were still little; Letho´s young had barely grown since their father had been in the Netherworld for the last time, even though they were already a few months old. They also still couldn´t talk, and they communicated through hissing and guttural clicking sounds.

The spider Minions weren´t making this clicking sound, however. Kniff was knitting.

Everywhere around him Minions were completely under the spell of the approaching battle. New weapons were chosen, polished, lost to a higher ranking horde member and fought over with tooth and claw. New horde members were ripped from the Hives in greater numbers than ever before. Ranks were being shuffled or confirmed. The Barracks were alive with activity.

But all Kniff wanted was a new hat. He was tired of walking around bareheaded. If the Empire´s capital was going to be taken, he´d do so with a hat, and one of the finest black and white silk at that.

He only looked up from his work as a long, sharp claw tapped on his shoulder. Ramul looked down on him with eyes full of incense and confusion.

"Letho said I could," Kniff explained.

Ramul glanced at his spider. Letho turned around – her spinnerets had been facing Kniff – and cast him a brief, many-eyed look. Ramul quickly nodded. "Okay, but hurry up."

"Yea, yea," the brown Minion grinned. "One time only."

"Kniff!" a raspy voice shouted upwards.

The Minion leaned over the edge of the living nets. "Yea?"

Straight below him another brown was staring up, grinning. "Jinx is back."

The barrack briefly shook as Kniff entered violently.

"Ow…" Jinx sucked her finger and then looked back. "Kniff!"

The Minion grinned. "Hi."

"Wait a minute…" Jinx lay aside the huge needle she´d been wielding. The floor of the barrack was covered in large pieces of tanned leather, and the horde leader was right in the middle of it.

Kniff´s eyes widened as he realized what she was doing. "Jinxie…"

"Yep. A saddle."

The Minion stared at her work for a moment, but then shook himself so hard his ears flapped in his face. Then he jumped up and around Jinx´ neck. "Glad you´re back."

"Me too," she grinned. "Are you ready for the siege?"

Kniff shrugged. "Knitting a hat. Don´t need more."

Jinx burst out laughing. Kniff chuckled and couldn´t help himself either.

A few moments later Jinx got a hold of herself again. "Seriously though, we can´t fly by day anymore. Sayron will figure me out if I´m not careful."

Kniff grinned. "Is a problem?"

The horde leader chuckled. "Well… no."  
><strong>(NETHERWORLDNIGHT)**

Late that evening, as Sayron had hopefully withdrawn into the private quarters, Jinx and Kniff carefully stepped off the floating rock and staggered into the throne room. They didn´t get ahead easily, as they were carrying a giant, elongated saddle they could both lie on behind each other. Jinx had been flying around with the rough saddle for long enough to be able to fabricate a real saddle from tanned leather that´d hopefully fit Zephyros. She could always adjust it on Everlight should it be needed.

Blue lightning struck into an empty hall, and they were gone.

As the throne room slowly darkened again, three stone heads stared over the throne and at the spot where they´d disappeared. Eyes glistened, lifeless but lifelike.

And somewhere up high in the green Minions´ webs, an irritated hissing resounded.  
>Metal claw knives scraped together. An altogether not too calm breathing quickened to panting and snorting. A little way further a huge black spider restlessly moved her legs as the sound woke her.<p>

Boredom…

He´d been promised battle, by the other two. Much battle, even. Very many throats to rip open, and he´d even been promised he could let himself go _all_ the way, something he hadn´t done since he´d clambered from that accursed Hive.

Boredom.

The battle didn´t come!

Panting and snorting changed into a soft, raspy giggle. The spider slowly backed away, her eyes glistening with the reflection of another light.

"_Do it, brother._"

Giggling changed into a terrible, high-pitched, insane laugh.

Then the screaming started.

**(NEXT DAY)**

Early the next morning, so early Sayron wasn´t up yet, so early even _Gnarl_ wasn´t in the throne room yet, a blue flash lit up the vaults of the great hall.

Two exhausted figures staggered out of the throne room and collapsed onto the floating rock.

It´d been a long night for Jinx and Kniff. The new saddle had been buckled onto Zephyros, tested and adjusted for hours, and it had been taken to the night sky. It wasn´t perfect yet, but it worked.

A short while later the rock docked at the Barracks, and the duo hoisted themselves onto solid basalt again. All their muscles ached, their heads were buzzing with the lack of sleep and the hours of flight, and the rings under their eyes weren´t exactly inconspicuous either.  
>And still they both noticed something was off at the green Hive.<p>

Jinx overcame her fatigue and stumbled towards the living webs.

They weren´t just vines and spider silk anymore. The webs had been enriched with entrails, pieces of skin and flesh and all kinds of decorative parts of Minions. Everywhere the horde leader looked, with increasingly wide, horrified eyes, were bloody chunks of Minion – tails, ears, eyeballs.

She wasn´t the only one drawn to the massacre at this hour. The smell of blood was thick in the air, and Minions were good at noticing and tracking that smell. Jinx felt more awake already, and she could see the same applied to Kniff.

"What happened here?" she asked, in a higher tone than she´d intended.

As if he actually was the ghost his appearance made him out to be, Mortis suddenly emerged at her side. There were more blues present at the scene, but no normal blue clan member was able to save a Minion in this state. The resurrecter stared at the chaos with expressionless frog eyes for a moment. "The insane one," he spoke.

"Stabbit?" Jinx clenched her jaws. "Again?" She´d never forget what happened in the hold of the _Shadow Bringer_, as the green Minion had started killing his own for the first time. But this surmounted all her expectations. "Jagg… _Scythe_ should slit his throat and let him rot in the Well."

Mortis nodded and opened his mouth to answer.

_Boom._

Everyone was flung forward, and many Minions dropped to their knees, as did Mortis. Jinx was the first to get to her feet again, and she was immediately running towards the explosion, ropes lashed out. First Stabbit losing it, now this. Even if it wasn´t connected, she wanted to know exactly what was exploding in her Barracks.

The explosion had come from the red Hive and the lava flows beyond it, and Jinx was soon running across warmer basalt. Eventually she saw what was happening, and she abruptly stopped running. Her furious expression melted away and was replaced by surprise.

The explosion had ripped a chunk of rock from the plateau, so a broad black pillar was now standing in the lava flow by itself. On that little island were two Minions, and in a way it didn´t surprise Jinx at all who they were.

Standing up tall, almost on his toes, was Fever. He´d raised his one claw up high, and Stabbit hung in his red-hot hand by his throat, kicking and struggling with pain. A green light shone between Fever´s fingers, however – the killer of the night was healing himself just as rapidly as the red tried to burn his way through his throat.

Jinx stared at the scene for a moment, as the rest of the Minions was still coming after her from the green Hive. Then Stabbit looked at her over Fever´s shoulder, and she jolted. The expression in those maniacal eyes was enough to give her chills, and the fiery surroundings of the red Hive made no difference.

"_Jinxie…_" the insane Minion hissed, in a terrible parody of Kniff´s voice. A horrifying giggle almost made Jinx clasp her hands to her ears.

Fever looked back and widened his eyes as he realized he had an audience.

Then a second explosion blew the horde leader back across the basalt, and with her all the other Minions that´d made it to her. Jinx smacked into a protruding piece of rock, wheezing she tried to breathe, and didn´t manage to, and tried again as a blue briefly tapped her shoulder. "Better," she uttered weakly. She scrambled up and staggered back to the edge.

The little island had disappeared into the lava flow. Jinx could just see a tail with two ivory spikes doing the same. A little way further Fever climbed up along the rock wall and disappeared into his stalactite dwelling.

Jinx narrowed her eyes. Somewhere in the lava, a very faint green light was glowing.  
>She knew Stabbit would walk around again that same day, without a scratch, and not with Mortis´ help.<p>

She turned, but didn´t walk away as her eyes met another pair. A black-lined pair, like those of Fever and Stabbit. It was Goudvis, and he was grinning broadly, as if the events amused him greatly. He wiped his face clean as he saw Jinx was staring at him, however.

Now the horde leader had had enough.

**(LATER)**

"Thanks you all could come," Jinx spoke hastily. She looked around her barrack. Around her, respectively with crossed legs, slumped to the wall and standing up almost rigidly, were

Hoarse, Scythe and Zap. Her fellow horde leaders nodded at her. Scythe gnawed at a chunk of rat half-heartedly.

"I´ve asked you to come here because I have some questions about certain Minions in your hordes," Jinx continued. She could barely keep her eyes open after an exceptionally tiring day, but something in her kept her going. She really wanted to know this. "I´m talking about Fever, Stabbit and Goudvis."

"Noticed nothing about Stabbit," Scythe said. "Doesn´t talk, but good fighter."

"And a nightly killer," Zap remarked. "I´d keep an eye on him if I were you. Mortis is going to have a nervous breakdown if more souls float in unannounced." He frowned as Scythe hissed at him aggressively.

Hoarse slightly straightened up from his cross-legged position. "Fever has the biggest fire, but doesn´t want my place." Jinx knew that, despite his good and long-lived leadership and contentment with the position, he´d hand his rank over to Fever immediately if the Minion asked for it. "Is strange. But not very strange."

"No, Giblet never wanted Stripe´s position either," Jinx nodded, trying to ignore the sudden sting of loss as the memory of Stripe reared its head. "But boys, come on. Fever´s blasted an enormous chunk of basalt into the lava flow this morning. Stabbit´s healing himself with green light. Goudvis – Zap, no offense, but this is a Minion from your horde, do me a favour – Goudvis has conjured up a gigantic ice crystal to kill the Salamander King, damn it! These are no normal powers for Minions. And those black eyes…"

Hoarse shrugged. "Don´t know much about Stabbit and Goudvis, but Fever´s just very strong."

Scythe snorted, but didn´t comment. He did look up as Zap spoke again. "I don´t know how that ice was formed. Why do you think it was Goudvis?"

Jinx fell silent, and thought back to the moment, seemingly ages ago, they´d defeated the Salamander King. Deep below the earth, at the bottom of the Last Sanctuary. They´d been driven with their backs to the wall – or rather, with their backs to a waterfall, and with the King´s scorching fire in front of them.

A chunk of ice had stopped the waterfall. And as the King had gotten close enough, the ice had broken, unleashing the river again.

Jinx remembered Goudvis´ grin, the moment before the waterfall had swallowed everything. It wasn´t much for proof. But she couldn´t shake off the feeling it´d been him – who else?

She shook her head in frustration. "I don´t know! But how would you explain it, Zap?"

"I have no idea," the blue leader admitted. "I – oh." He glanced to his right, where Scythe had been sitting. "It seems we´ve lost someone, leaders."

Jinx growled. "Scythe…"

"Knew nothing anyway," Hoarse said. He smiled slightly, and spread his hands in apology. "Can´t help. Sorry."

"It´s alright, Hoarse. This mystery will have to wait," Jinx concluded. "Thanks for coming."  
>Hoarse nodded and left the barrack. Zap did the same, but before he stepped outside he half turned back to Jinx and cast her one last, piercing gaze. Her eyes suddenly fell to his one remaining hand. He´d folded his thumb inwards, and the remaining three fingers were resting on his heart.<p>

Then he was gone, and Jinx was left sitting there in confusion – with one more question than she´d started out with.

A little while later Kniff came in, but as Jinx asked him whether he knew what Zap had meant with the sign he shrugged in confusion. "Don´t know, Jinxie. Never heard of that sign." Fatigue spoke from his entire posture, and he clearly couldn´t wait to crash to his sleeping mat.

"Hm." Jinx lowered herself to her mat again. "Okay then… well, I´m calling it a day. Tonight is for sleeping. See you tomorrow, Kniff."

"Sleep well, Jinxie." The Minion curled up and had dozed off within minutes.

Jinx remained lying there with open eyes, however, and with milling thoughts.

She´d gotten good at reading the emotions of Minions during her time with them. Her friend´s ears had lowered as he claimed not to know Zap´s sign.

For the first time since she´d met him, Kniff had lied to her.

**(NEXT MORNING)**

Early the following morning, Scabies didn´t know what happened to him.

The pirate with the red parrot hadn´t been planning to get up this early. He´d wanted to take it easy – in contrast to most of the other Minions, he didn´t worry too much about the coming battle. He´d been a member of the upper world horde for a long time, and his inventory had been complete since the first travels across Everlight. He just busied himself affectionately sharpening Duda´s beak and claws to razorlike tips with a small whetstone.

And now, he´d been plunged up to his elbows into brown, murky slime.

The Hives were making overtime. In Everlight as well as Nordberg, the people were catching animals like crazy, butchering them for their life force, which they then deposited into the Tower Gates so Minions could be born out of it. The input was at its greatest now, and the shifts dragging the newborns into the world were no longer sufficient. Even the professional warriors were dragged out of their barracks to help now.

Scabies, surrounded by countless other Minions of his clan, groped around between the folds of his own brown Hive. It wasn´t a particularly pretty structure, like the flower-shaped green Hive or the flat coral-like cups of the blue one. The brown Hive was a sagging, shapeless heap, with rolls of tissue draped over one another, and it was from the folds between these rolls that new Minions were born. Scabies was operating blindly, but eventually he managed to get a hold of something.

Many Minions were born with wounds, scars and ripped ears because of the clumsiness of their helpers. A brown Minion´s claws were always sharp, and they were never careful. But Scabies thought he´d grabbed an arm or a leg now, and wouldn´t do too much damage…

He pulled.

In a flood of slime his arm appeared, freeing itself from the folds bit by bit. Together with his wrist, a foot came to sight, three-toed and tipped with still soft, but sharp claws. The pirate rammed his other arm into the Hive as well and sought for the new Minion´s other leg, found it and yanked out the newest recruit upside down.

Covered in slime, with his eyes glued shut and his ears folded back, the Minion slid out.

Scabies roughly dropped him to the floor, grabbed a couple of discarded banners and rubbed open his eyes. The Minion blinked for the first time and raised his ears.

"What´s your name?" Scabies asked, following unwritten tradition.

"Lash," it sounded with the frail voice of the first words.

"Good name," the pirate nodded. Then he turned away from the newborn and stuck his slimy arms back into the Hive. He´d be busy for a while.

**(PRIVATE QUARTERS)**

"My love?"

Sayron turned. He´d been headed for Fay´s chambers – the queen had wanted to see him, and he wasn´t about to leave her waiting.

He hadn´t seen Kelda for a while now. But here, leant against the wall of the private quarters, was Juno.

"What is it, Juno?"

The bronze-haired Mistress was pouting slightly. "Darling, I know new love has come into play. But that doesn´t mean you´ve forgotten about me, does it?"

Sayron hesitated. Juno was blindingly beautiful in her richly embroidered toga, and she´d put some effort into her make-up and hair as well, he noticed. "I couldn´t, Juno," he smiled. "I´m not asking you to leave the Netherworld in any case, quite the contrary."

Juno stepped away from the wall and draped an arm across his shoulder. "When are you bringing me something nice again, darling?"

"Something nice…"

"Shiny, expensive." The Mistress smiled seductively. "Or maybe, when you take it for yourself, a part of Arcadiopolis? Some pretty villas…"

"Sayron, love."

The undertone of crushing poison was barely hidden in her voice as Fay stepped in from the direction of her own chambers. "Don't waste your time on her."

"Fay!" Sayron quickly detached himself from Juno and walked with the elven Mistress. "I was just coming to visit you."

The queen smiled, suddenly less hostile now she had Sayron´s attention. "That´s sweet of you. Ironically, I´ve come to send you away."

"What? Why?"

"Love, the battle is approaching. Armies don´t organize themselves. Go to Ignavopolis and Nordberg and gather your troops, they need leadership."

"They have leadership."

Fay looked at him sideways. "Whose?"

Sayron halted and leant against a dark, engraved wall himself. "Well, in Ignavopolis they are under the command of Marcus Cassius, a former centurion. Good man, very loyal. He´s led them before as Ignavopolis was attacked by the Empire."

"And Nordberg?"

"Kivner," Sayron grinned. "And Seffec. Ruborian boy, Jinx snatched him and his men from the Arena."

"And you allowed that?"

Sayron blinked. "They´re worthy warriors. And she seemed to like the boy. I figured I´d do her a favour."

Fay slightly stepped away from him. "She´s a servant, you don´t do favours to servants. It´s good you took in the soldiers, but don´t get too attached to your horde leader." She paused. "Jinx liked the boy? Did he ´like´ her as well?"

"I´ve never noticed much of it, but he seemed to worry about her sometimes." Sayron hesitated. Was he getting too attached to Jinx? She´d done a lot for him, but…

"Hmm." Fay smiled. Then she lay a hand against Sayron´s cheek. "I stick with my point, love. Go and see how things are getting along."

Sayron grinned. "Yes, milady."

As the Overlord stepped into the throne room, Gnarl was already present, as always. He was bent over a map and mumbling to himself. Quaver was standing right next to the throne, overlooking it with interest.

As Sayron´s footsteps approached, the advisor looked up. "Ah! Good morning, Sire."

"Good morning, Gnarl. What´s the map for?"

The old Minion coughed. "Well, Sire… the point is…"

Sayron sat down onto the throne and supported his head with a gauntleted hand. "Bad news? Spit it out."

Gnarl clenched his hands together. "They´ve found all the Gates, Sire."

The Overlord blinked. "In the Empire?"

"Yes. This was to be expected, of course. We had no means of defending them. It seems the shield preventing the use of all magic has closed completely. Our gates in the slums and at the river delta have been down for a while now."

Sayron sighed briefly. "Well, what´s the closest Tower Gate now?"

Quaver´s ears perked, but he kept quiet.

"…We are, Sire."

Sayron frowned. "What?"

"We´re closest to the Empire. The Black Gate of the Netherworld itself. No point in our control is closer to the Empire than our entrance in the Nordbergian mountains." Gnarl folded his hands beneath his cloak. "We´ll have to go by land, Sire. A long march through the north of the Empire, along smaller villages and towns, all the way to Arcadiopolis by the sea."

"This is going to be material for an incredible ballad," Quaver grinned, bouncing up and down on the tips of his clawed toes. "I can´t wait, Master!"

Sayron stared at the floor, letting this sink in. "But why didn´t we do this when we were visiting Arcadiopolis for the first time?"

"We didn´t want any unwanted attention then, Lord. Arriving in a sheltered bay was a smarter move than flattening every village along the way. But this time it doesn´t matter whose attention we draw to ourselves. Of course, we´ll try to down all messengers and carrier pigeons, but the fact remains we´re coming to slay the Emperor and we´ll meet an army in any case. And that´s what we´ve prepared ourselves for in the first place, haven´t we?"

As Gnarl spoke a grin had once again manifested itself on Sayron´s face. "You´re most right, as always, Gnarl. Yes. And about that, I´m going to Ignavopolis and Nordberg today to check how my troops are doing…"

"A good idea, Sire!" Gnarl turned as the Overlord stood up and walked over to the centre of the hall.

"What´s a good idea?" a new voice resounded.

Sayron looked back. Jinx was stepping into the throne room. The Overlord briefly nodded at her. "I´m leaving now to inspect my troops. You´ll manage, right? Rest some more. I´ll be gone for the day."

"No help needed, Sire?"

"No, I´ll do this alone."

"Good luck," the horde leader nodded. She and Gnarl looked on as lightning struck the Overlord and he disappeared to the upper world in the blinding light.

"So…" Jinx grinned. "I´ve got the day off?" She followed the advisor as he descended the stairs leading down into the Tower.

Gnarl gave her a sideways look. "Please don´t do anything stupid."

"What do you take me for?" she answered as she ran past him to the lower levels. "Do something stupid? Me? Ha!"  
><strong>(BARRACKS)<strong>

Minc, the Minion with the elven bow and the cassowary skull, wasn´t too happy with the commotion around the Barracks. He´d taken up refuge in the Minion armoury – the chamber had been as busy as the Barracks for the past few days, but almost everyone had all the weapons he needed by now – and fabricated arrow after arrow from thin pieces of wood, often discarded by the rest of the Tower. All sorts of feathers were used up, and arrowheads of metal, stone and bone were all just as welcome to the archer.

He´d briefly gotten company from two red Minions. Unusual, as their clan never used weapons, but their glow had been nice to work by, and they´d talked for a while. The red with the metal arm, Sear, had been sharpening his hook on the whetstone he´d come to get, and the other, Simmer, had been inspecting the surrounding weaponry with interest. Now they´d gone and Minc was alone again, save for the occasional searching Minion.

Until Jinx came barging in, an enormous grin on her face, calling out for a crossbow.

Minc lay aside his arrows for a moment. "Crossbow?"

The horde leader looked up. "Minc! Hi. Yep, crossbow. Where are those stored?"

"Not many, but…" The Minion pointed at a crate high up in the shelves and looked on as Jinx used her ropes to walk up along the wall, to remain hanging at the crate in question. She rummaged around between the weapons for a bit.

Minions almost never used crossbows as the things were too heavy. A regular bow was manageable, but the mechanisms of a crossbow were simply inefficient. Kivner was the only one wielding one now, and it was probably the best they´d had.

"Aha!" Jinx lifted one of the bows from the crate; a robust weapon, scarcely refined at all and almost entirely made out of pure wood, slightly splintering in some places. She plucked at the bowstring and nodded contently. A second grasp into the crate was awarded with some crossbow bolts, shorter than regular arrows. "Could you pass on I need more of these, Minc?"

The brown Minion nodded and tapped the crest of his bird skull as Jinx walked up the stairs again. He seriously wondered what need Jinx could have for a bow.

**(SURFACE/IGNAVPOLIS)**

Ignavopolis was once again sunny as Sayron arrived. As he stepped out of the Gate and started wandering through the white, sloping streets he quickly attracted a mob, and it immediately cheered him up to see how the people were doing.

Weapons and armour had been brought up to the town through the Gate, and the people had used them well. Many of them were armed even now, and in strategic spots straw dolls and targets had been set up. The people were quite a bit skinnier than the Imperial bags of lard he´d dominated, that day back in summer, and they often had wild hair and scars, but they were strong and motivated. The two hundred Minions he´d left ran along amidst them, just as happy he´d returned and fully armed as well.

It didn´t take long before Marcus Cassius worked his way through the people and bowed before Sayron. "Sire! To what do we thank this honour?"

"You´ve been busy, Marcus," the Overlord spoke with an eye on the mob. "I came to take a look at the proceedings, but I don´t think I can improve what you´ve done here." He looked down at the governor. "Do you have a good distribution? Archers, foot soldiers…"

"Companies assemble!" Marcus roared without warning. "Divide into groups!"

The unorganized mob divided itself and took the shape of clear groups; archers, heavier infantry and normal foot soldiers.

Sayron stared at his Everlightian army. There were men as well as women, and even some children were armed with small daggers. All of them were loyal to him, all of them were willing to die for him. Sayron almost teared up with happiness.

Then he saw a few figures looking at him with other expressions: no blind loyalty and worship, but dull acceptance and, sometimes, poorly hidden hatred. Those figures wore other clothes than the others: green, leaf-like… and they had pointy ears, sticking up through their hair.

Elves?

Sayron stepped forward, straight through the army, and closed his gauntlet around the shoulder of one of them. "Where did you come from?"

"Everywhere and nowhere," was the answer. The elf lowered his eyes. "We heard of the fall of Orntal. We serve you, your majesty."

Sayron looked around. Now he noticed that, in some places above the houses, fairies were floating in the air. The golden pixie dust tracks they made were almost invisible in the bright sunlight, but they were there, and he realized they had probably spread the news to all elves still hiding on Everlight. More would come, he knew. They were bound to him now, and that was worth more than any amount of dead elves, no matter what Gnarl might say.

With them at his side he had a few thousand people here alone. It seemed his human armies were getting along even better than he´d hoped, and these warriors were just cannon fodder. This battle was going to be an incredible success, and Sayron was very glad he already had at least one bard to sing of it.

**General Herbison, still hanging from the banister: Ah the battle doth draw near and the warriors hone their craft for the dawn of war. Shall not we who hang from this… blasted banister get someone to pull me in!**

**Jinx looks down: Oh, I forgot about you.**

**General: I love you with all my heart fair lady of beauty and magic.**

**Jinx: What?**

**General: I said… oh never mind. Just pull me in!**

**Jinx hoists the General up and onto the banister: There. Happy?**

**The General fixes his uniform: Much better, my jacket was an inch to the left, totally out of place.**

**General Herbison and Jinx descend into the throne room and watch the preparations.**

**Jinx: Very soon now.**

**General: Indeed. Now if you will excuse me oh magnificent vision of my love I have a war to prepare for.**

**Jinx watches the General march away: Ooooookay. Please review readers. I'll be sure to pass them on to my creator Sunjino.**


	34. Last Respite Part 2

**Last Respite Part 2**

The cries of the giant bat were almost music to Jinx´ ears. 

She lay flat on the back of her mount, buckled in place on the new, improved saddle, with Kniff behind her and the crossbow clasped in her hands. She aimed past Zephyros´ head with it as his wings dragged her away from the ground on a crazy thermal, higher and higher above the land. They flung themselves up and to the east, away from the sea and towards the distant mountains. 

_An entire day without Sayron in the Tower_, Jinx cheered mentally. _There was only one way to spend this day!_ "Bank, Zeph! To the left!" 

The bat folded his outer wing fingers and lowered the resistance of the air as he did so. He threw his body to the left, and then spread his right wing for a little more thrust. They swung away in the blink of an eye, and Jinx could almost feel how they´d dodged an imaginary catapult boulder this way. "To the right!" Her stomach shot into her throat as Zephyros obeyed her immediately. She clutched the crossbow tightly – she didn´t want to lose it already. _Especially not now_, she thought as she started to grin maliciously. Below her, high above the canopy, was a swarm of fairies, their golden tracks clearly visible against the jungle´s vibrant green. 

Jinx closed one eye and aimed her crossbow. "Easy, Zeph… hold it just like that…" She deeply inhaled, exhaled, and… 

The short arrow sliced through the air. Jinx followed the dark speck with her eyes and looked on as it utterly missed the intended fairy. 

Behind her Kniff chuckled. "Practice makes perfect." 

"Very true," the horde leader growled as she readied a new bolt. 

**(IGNAVOPOLIS)**

Sayron spent the entire morning and a part of the afternoon in Ignavopolis. The people continued what they had been doing, and next to normal daily business there were also a lot of practice fights in the squares of the town, and if people were free for a moment they sharpened their weapons, practiced their shooting precision or went to catch animals in the jungle for life force. There were always shifts in the forest, and people were joining those shifts all the time. 

Eventually, as the sun rose up high above the town, Sayron returned to the Tower Gate. He turned to Marcus one last time. "Remember, you have much time. I have to get to Arcadiopolis before I call you up to me." 

"We´ll be ready, Sire," Marcus promised with fire in his gaze.

**(EVERLIGHT)**

Noon, and the sun was high. 

Jinx and Kniff had landed a couple of times to allow Zephyros to rest, and to eat as well, mostly on rock formations rising above the canopy. Jinx had been looking for fossils in the soft limestone, but had been unable to find any. Now they were flying again, still on their way to the east, and still practicing commands and manoeuvres. 

Just because she could, just because she´d promised Zephyros. 

By now she could stay on much better as the bat banked from side to side, and a half-roll was manageable as well. The bat almost threw himself on his side and arched one of his wings over his body as far as he could, so they soared across the sky in a sideways arch. The imaginary arrows and boulders they were now dodging whirred past Zephyros´ vulnerable belly. During one such manoeuvre Jinx tried to shoot some birds from the sky with her crossbow held high, but failed miserably and almost fell off her mount – if she hadn´t been buckled in place so firmly, she´d have actually fallen to the treetops. 

"Careful, Jinxie," Kniff remarked, but he was grinning with appreciation. 

"I can do this," Jinx answered determinedly. "Just you wait." A new idea occurred to her and she just wanted to tell Zephyros to try a somersault as she fell silent and lowered the bow. 

They´d almost reached the mountains, and almost in the exact same spot as during their journey to Orntal, weeks before. Jinx slowly hooked the bow on to her back. No more shooting practice, that´d been forgotten in the light of this new view. 

It was the mysterious overgrown tower with the rounded top, resembling the old Overlord architecture, they´d encountered on their way earlier. Then Jinx had decided they were in a hurry and they´d continued towards Orntal. This time, however, she knew exactly how far from the Gate they were – a few hours of flight. They could be back before nightfall if they´d take a look now. 

A few minutes later Zephyros landed on the half collapsed, rounded top of the tower, and Jinx and Kniff let themselves fall in through the hole. 

As expected the – strangely six-sided – top room was completely ruined and emptied. In the corners were sunlight poured in, plants and even a small tree had taken root. Stairs led down, however, and Jinx descended slowly, expecting to be blocked at every step – but the blockade didn´t come. 

Chambers full of the rotted remains of wooden furniture – sometimes only some splinters, sometimes, in the case of real hardwood, real beams and parts of elegant chairs, tables and long benches. All of the rooms were faceted, with still relatively smooth walls. As they reached lower levels the number of sides increased from six to eight. 

Jinx got the impression someone noble had lived here once, and she was reminded of senator Drearius´ villa and the summer homes of Ignavopolis. But as she looked harder, and wiped the dust and rock chippings from the walls, she thought again. 

A spider motif returned everywhere. Stylized, long elegant legs, many round eyes, fangs.

Now she´d noticed the pattern she saw it everywhere. She slowly spun round, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly agape. 

Then Kniff turned around from another corner of the room. "Jinxie!" 

She walked towards him and traced a finger along the sculpture he´d uncovered – standing on a loose beam, as it lay higher in the wall, above something that could once have been a fireplace. This was no spider. This was something with long, pointy ears, and sharp, upward-pointing tusks. This sculpture was a green Minion´s head. 

Jinx stepped back as if stung. "An Overlord. I was actually right." 

_Send my regards to the green Minions..._

...Atrej? 

"If that´s true I think I´m being attracted to the guy," Jinx muttered. "Jeez." 

They descended further into the abandoned tower, through overgrown and ruined chambers and halls, sometimes wide and filling the tower´s entire diameter, sometimes small and cramped. Jinx could almost see how Minions had been encamped here, in the smallest rooms with straw on the floor. In many of the walls, rusty hooks were still visible, just like the hooks in most of the barracks of the Netherworld. 

Here and there the walls had been broken open and sunlight poured in. It was in one of these lit chambers, where thousands of particles of dust danced in the light beam and many smaller spider webs were suddenly visible, gleaming like a pearly blanket on the walls, that Jinx made her discovery. 

Against the wall the light fell on lay the remains of an old table or some kind of desk – a collapsed heap of lopsided wood, with a broad top lying on it all. It was covered in dust and spider webs, and here and there small plants were also climbing up along the walls and across the wood. Beneath the webs lay the remains of books, in the form of rat-bitten leather covers. The pages were all gone, the paper or parchment eaten by rats or insects. There were also some green, rusted copper cases, but those had all been pried or left open, and those, too, were empty. 

Save for one. 

Jinx realized this only after she´d been staring at the messy heap for a few seconds. One of the copper tubes was still sealed. The contents were probably still intact. She realized she was curious; she´d always been, something which had also surfaced during her fossil hunts and the exploration of Atrej´s other Tower in the Wasteland. 

If the Darklord had left something interesting here, she was going to investigate it.  
>She walked towards the heap of wood and picked up the cylinder. The metal was rough with age, and she pulled along quite a lot of spider webs. <p>

She inspected the copper for a moment. Yes, the case was sealed off well... so well she couldn´t remove the cap at all. The horde leader held the object between her knees and turned with all her strength, but nothing happened. For a moment she thought about calling in Kniff´s sharp claws – the Minion had descended the stairs further – but then she grinned.

"I´m an idiot," she chuckled, snapping her fingers until a small purple flame appeared in her hand. She narrowed her eyes and twisted the flame until it was thin and sharp, and able to cut through copper as if it was butter. A moment later the cap clattered to the ground.  
>Jinx reached into the cylinder with two fingers and carefully pulled out a scroll. It was paper, not parchment, and it was incredibly thin and delicate, so had to be careful not to rip it. There was quite a lot of it, fully covered in little spidery letters, stained and illegible with age in places. <p>

She studied the text for a moment, and then made a face. "What...? Dwarven?!" She sighed; she remembered from other texts and Gnarl´s stories Atrej had had a rich past in the dwarven mines of the Golden Mountain range. She should have expected this. 

The dwarven alphabet was very much like the human one, but the words were complete nonsense to Jinx. She knew a few, but not enough to actually read the text. Her eyes skimmed the paragraphs, and she was about to leave the paper on the collapsed table, when her eyes fell on something else.

_The darkness from the mines visited me again. The Unholy Lord spread his wings over me and showed me his hearts._

What was this? It made no sense. The Unholy Lord? Gnarl said that sometimes, but she´d never known what he meant with it... 

She now noticed more parts of the text were written in the human language. Maybe Atrej had wanted to keep speaking both languages, but had been forced to stay focused on dwarven. 

Jinx returned to the part she´d been reading.

_The hearts are like nothing I´ve ever seen before, even in these mines. They are round and gleaming like perfect pearls, and there are three of them, one for each of his crowns. According to him, two of them, the fiery and the icy one, are promised to others, two he called my brother and sister. He promised his most poisonous heart to me._

Hearts shaped like perfect pearls? 

Jinx stared ahead. That sounded as if it could be nothing else than Tower Hearts. _Hearts._ Plural. 

Somewhere, sometime, there had been two other Tower Hearts. If she wasn´t terribly mistaken, that was. 

The one wielding _three_ Tower Hearts would be invincible. That was the power of a god! 

But who was this Unholy Lord, with his three crowns? "Strange phrase," Jinx said to herself. It sounded like a typical dwarven term, and she had the feeling something else than actual crowns was meant here, but she couldn´t guess what. 

Atrej´s brother and sister... Vergal and Synn. The three Darklords had had their own Tower Hearts! Of course... if they couldn´t even work out the distribution of the Minion Hives, how could they ever have shared one Heart? 

She looked up as Kniff entered via the stairs. "Hey," she greeted him, returning the scroll to its cylinder. "Is there something interesting down there?" 

The Minion shook his head. "Collapsed chambers. Everything´s overgrown after that." 

"Let´s go back," Jinx nodded. She tucked the case into her pocket. "We can just make it back to the Tower if we hurry." She shook off the new information and bent over through the hole in the wall. "Zeph?" 

The bat threw himself down and hooked on to the outside of the tower, so his riders could climb back on. Then he spread his wings and allowed himself to be turned around, back to the west and Orntal.

**(NORDBERG)**

Sayron had travelled on towards Nordberg after a short break in the Netherworld and now climbed from the Tower Gate, shivering with the sudden cold. He realized he hadn´t been here for a long time, not since he´d left the city burning and exploding after the last battle. He´d sent people from the Wasteland to Nordberg, but he hadn´t checked on them since.

He´d left that to Kivner and Seffec, his loyal lieutenants. 

It didn´t take long before Kivner came running towards him. The ginger man seemed to have a sixth sense for activity around the Tower Gate. "My Lord! Welcome back." He smiled broadly, and Sayron felt a little uncomfortable, as he always did when confronted with the man´s affection.

He smiled back. "Good to see you, Kivner," he said notwithstanding. "How is my Nordbergian army coming along?" 

It was later than on Everlight here, as Nordberg lay much further to the east. The sun stood lower in the sky here and already had a red glow. 

"The people await your orders, Sire. We´ve made sure the wolf families around the city were kept well-fed, and they have lots of cubs that should be fully grown soon, for your brown Minions." Kivner walked with him into town. "The mines yielded a lot of ore, as your forgers may have noticed." 

"They told me so," Sayron nodded. "You´ve done very well." Kivner beamed. "Has anything else happened that I should know of?" 

The ginger man swallowed for a moment, but then pushed aside his first thought. "Around a month ago a man left the city. One of the Ruborians, Omari the mage. He told Seffec he was going back to Ruboria, but the boy didn´t want to tell me why." 

"Was he planning on coming back or has he deserted?" The mage had been useful, and Sayron preferred not to lose him. 

"I believe he wanted to come back. But what are the odds he makes it in time, before the battle?" Kivner shrugged. Sayron frowned – he didn´t even really grasp the vast distance between Ruboria and Nordberg. "You´re right. I´d like to ask Seffec himself. Do you know where he is?" 

Kivner grimaced. This was it. He could no longer hide Seffec´s blunder from his Lord.

**(IN THE SKIES FAR AWAY)**

The sun had long passed its zenith, and it started to sink noticeably. Zephyros had travelled a long distance, but Orntal wasn´t yet to be seen. 

Jinx was silent during the flight. She couldn´t drop the thought of Atrej´s scroll and she actually wanted to read on, but she knew she would do well to leave the paper in its cylinder during the flight – it was too fragile and she really didn´t want to lose it. 

The incomprehensible, but clearly very important matters the text spoke of had reminded her of the past day. Unexplainable actions on the behalf of Fever, Stabbit and Goudvis, nobody had answers, and Kniff lied to her. Also a reason she didn´t reply to his comments as he lay behind her in the saddle. 

The light unmistakably started to redden, and foggy clouds danced before the sun as a black spot appeared on the horizon. The charred devastation of Orntal. 

That was also the moment Zephyros started complaining beneath her. The bat´s stomach had been grumbling for a while, and Jinx had promised him again and again he could eat once they were back in Orntal. Now, however, he uttered a sound that could only be described as a pitiful squeak. 

"Little one," Jinx smiled, stroking the large ears. "I´m asking a bit much, aren´t I? Alright, if you see something you can catch it." 

Zephyros´ eyes glistened. Immediately he let himself plummet from the sky, and Jinx and Kniff grasped on with surprised yelps. It was clear he´d already had something in mind.  
>They sliced through the air, growing warmer and more humid as they came closer to the forest. Eventually the bat burst through a hole in the canopy, looked around searchingly, and outstretched his claws to his fleeing prey. <p>

Flawless, as usual. As she dismounted Jinx wondered how Zephyros could always see where the meat was, through leaves and from enormous altitudes... 

It was only as her feet touched the ground when she saw what kind of animal the bat had caught, and what now surrounded her and Kniff. 

Black and white fur, a blunt snout, small lifeless eyes. Everywhere around her tallgrass reached for the canopy. Broken stalks lay beneath Zephyros´ legs and wing claws.  
>Grass bear territory. And she could already hear the growls of the other bears. <p>

"Oh, no." Jinx turned to her mount. "Zephyros, drop it! We have to get away!" 

The bat lifted his bloodied snout from the carcass and looked at her questioningly, but before Jinx could fling herself onto his back something else had already done so. A black and white flash appeared above the flyer´s back, and Jinx pulled the crossbow from her back with a scream... 

...too late, far too late. 

The grass bear´s heavy paw had descended onto Zephyros´ head, and its jaws had sunken into the back of his neck. The bat screeched and rolled over, biting and clawing at the bear. The grass bear´s stomach was wounded superficially, but the bear pulled its claws over Zephyros´ wings and ripped the membrane, so it hung loose from his wing fingers, dripping with blood. 

Then a crossbow bolt buried itself between the bear´s eyes with a fleshy sound, and the heavy body thudded down on Zephyros´ belly, to roll off as the bat stood up.  
>More bears appeared from the tallgrass. Jinx cursed herself for leaving her sword and ropes behind to concentrate on the crossbow. <p>

If she didn´t have enough arrows she could always use her magic. But Zephyros was wounded... they were going to need a healer. 

She couldn´t think further. The first bears plunged forward, and she was only able to fire a few bolts before one of them had toppled her over, onto her back on the forest floor. A black paw was raised, and then parted from the body by a flaming burst of purple magic. The head followed soon after. 

In the meantime Kniff had positioned himself before Zephyros and jumped up at the bears, to stick his dagger in their eyes and distract them with sharp, vicious wounds to their legs and flanks. He couldn´t concentrate on any one bear to kill it, as the rest would then fling themselves onto Zephyros. 

The bat was far from disabled. On the side where Kniff couldn´t defend him he did so himself, using his razor-sharp teeth and claws and inflating himself to three times his normal size. The hair in his neck stood up straight, all his teeth were bared and his eyes glistened with murder. 

Jinx joined them, firing purple magic at the slightest hint of black and white between the green stalks. 

It was an insane battle. Jinx and Kniff rapidly circled Zephyros to protect the bat from further injuries. They only partly succeeded; the grass bears came from all sides and inflicted deep scratches over the flyer´s ribs, and then suddenly Kniff was beaten against the large body in exhaustion, unable to get up for the moment. As Jinx saw that she went mad.  
>A ferocious battle cry escaped her, she kicked away from the forest floor in a mighty jump and rained down scorching purple fire on everything that moved, outside the circle of dead bears they´d created around Zephyros. Her face was a mask of rage and her hands were smoking with the amount of magic she pumped through. <p>

As her scream died away, nothing remained standing in the clearing. 

The last bear slowly raised its head from the body of its dead kin. Grey smoke streamed from its maw. Jinx turned, swift as a snake, and hurled a screaming fireball at him. An echoing explosion tore the forest´s silence to shreds one last time, and the bear spattered apart in tatters of fur. 

The Purple Scourge, more than worthy of her name, remained standing there for a moment, chest heaving and eyes burning. Then she jerked her arms, extinguished her magic and ran back to Kniff and Zephyros. 

The Minion hoisted himself up, groaning as he did so, but he didn´t seem to be wounded save for some superficial scratches. He was bleeding, but he could stand and hadn´t broken anything. 

Zephyros´ wounds were worse. The bat had taken on his own defense from a few directions at once, and the bears´ claws had pulled deep scratches along his snout, neck and ribs. His wings were torn in many places and bites had been taken from the membrane´s edges. Some bears lying close by still had tatters of it in their lifeless maws. But the worst was the deep, bloody wound between his neck and the base of his right wing, Jinx realized as she came closer. It wasn´t visible at first because of the thick, matted fur, but the blood pumped out with alarming speed and steadily dripped onto the forest floor. Before her eyes, Zephyros uttered a strange, pained sound and slowly sunk to the ground. 

Jinx groaned as if she was in pain herself. She hurried to the wound and lay her hand on it, then pulled back in shock. "Artery," she muttered. "No..." She gasped as the bat´s eyes dulled and slid to a half-close. "No!" 

Kniff came closer. "Jinxie. Are near Orntal." He spoke in a hunted tone, with wide eyes and tense muscles, as if he could start running at any moment. 

The horde leader looked up. For a moment she stared at him, seemingly not understanding what he was getting at, then she quickly nodded, her eyes wide. "Yes. Go to the Barracks and get the most trustworthy blue you can find. After that we´ll make it up as we go along, but we have to save him! Please hurry!" 

Kniff nodded and ran into the forest. "Save him, Jinxie, promise it!" his voice rang out between the trees. 

Then Jinx was alone with her dying mount, desperately pressing her hands and rags of torn fabric to his wound, praying Kniff would be fast enough.

**(NORDBERG)**

The shadows lengthened as Kivner guided Sayron through the city. On the way the Overlord inspected the progress of his army, and just like in Ignavopolis there was little reason for improvement. The people had been armed a little heavier here, with large swords, axes or clubs originally used for hunting seals. Skins and furs, covered with steel armour, would form a good defense against the Empire´s swords and spears. 

Then Sayron realized something was off. Something was wrong with the people. They seemed ill at ease... especially the Ruborians. 

Not long after that Kivner pulled open a door and stuck his head inside. "Seffec, the Master´s returned." 

The boy came out with a lowered head. His bare arms were covered in fresh scars, and Sayron realized many other warriors also had these. 

The Overlord narrowed his eyes. "What happened here, Seffec?" 

The young Ruborian leader raised his head, and his messy black hair fell from his blue eyes. "My Lord," he uttered. "The people from the Wasteland have all mutated, Lord." He said it quickly, to get it over with. He kept looking at Sayron with his head held high. 

Sayron´s eyes shot to a more fiery orange. "How many deaths?" he hissed. 

"One hundred and forty-six," Seffec immediately answered, in a quiet tone indicating he´d remember that number for the rest of his days. 

Sayron clenched his jaws, as his eyes flared up to red. Now he understood why Kivner hadn´t taken him to the boy immediately. "Those people were part of my army, boy," he growled. "They were meant to keep from dying until they entered the battlefield." He didn´t raise his voice, but the streets had become so silent his words resounded far regardless, and Seffec winced with every syllable. He lowered his eyes. 

Then a new voice sliced through the cold air. _"Punish him, my love."  
><em> 

Sayron froze. "Fay?" His eyes narrowed as he looked back at Seffec. "Yes. My queen is right. I almost regret positioning you here, but your attitude might improve if I teach you a lesson..." 

Seffec looked up, a grim expression on his face. Then Fay spoke again, with a chilling laugh.  
><em>"I suddenly have an idea, love. A nice amount of lashes, with the ropes of our sweet little Jinx!"<br>_

Seffec´s blue eyes widened.

Far from there, unaware of all of this, a single Minion wrestled himself through the undergrowth to Orntal, panting and growling. As he reached the burnt areas his clawed feet threw up ash and wood splinters, in great grey clouds. Every now and then he also left a few drops of blood, but overall the healing process had already begun. 

Kniff ran for Zephyros´ life, and maybe also Jinx´. He didn´t know if there were still bears out there, and whether Jinx would be able to handle them if they returned. That thought gave him wings. 

He hadn´t been completely honest with her the previous day, but those matters didn´t leave the clans. He didn´t know why Zap had made the three-fingered sign. He was confused, wanted to trust Jinx, but a deep-rooted conviction kept him from it. She was still human, and this was a Minion secret. Even Sayron knew nothing of this. 

She was human, but he did live for her. And now, halfway through the charred remains, he ran his legs off for her. 

The small dark figure of the Minion slowly approached the heart of Orntal, and then moved up along the palace tree with jolting, jumping movements. The spiral path had been partly burnt away, but Kniff could still get to the top, with the help of his claws and pure willpower. 

Then he disappeared into the Tower Gate and rushed back to the Netherworld, using paths only his kind could use, straight to the rickety, chasm-crossed labyrinth of the Barracks.  
>As he arrived he staggered away from the hanging dwellings of the browns and scrambled towards the river across the inky black basalt. He desperately tried to think of a way to get a blue to follow him – it wasn´t as if he had orders to. <p>

A trustworthy blue... he didn´t know many blues. As Zap made off with the Hive he´d only been a few months old, and he hadn´t had much contact with them now either. Mysterious individuals, skilled with magic, but they didn´t fight very well... 

...except for one. 

"I don´t understand you´re carrying that thing around with you all day," the gurgling voice of one of the Minions resounded as Kniff arrived at the river. The brown Minion looked out across the rapid water, the basins with newborn, yellow-eyed tadpoles, the Hive and of course, further away in a bend in the stream, the strange waterproof dwellings on stilts.  
>Closer to him than those dwellings were a few blues, sitting on a collection of rocks in the river. Most of them were looking at one specific blue, a short individual with light leather arm and shoulder guards and a belt around his waist. He had a grin on his face while listening to the commentary of the others. Also he was sharpening a – by blue standards – huge dagger. <p>

Kniff knew that blue, superficially. His name was Drip, and he was one of the few blues that fought in a way the brown Minion could appreciate. Most of the time he was the first to jump into battle, and he often dragged the dead and wounded from the most dangerous situations. 

The brown whistled between his fingers. "Drip!" 

The blues all looked up. Kniff tried to hide his nervousness. "Drip, feel like practicing?" He flicked his own, jagged dagger into the air and furiously hoped the blue would fall for it.  
>To his great relief Drip slid from the rock and into the water, swimming to the riverbank with powerful strokes. He hoisted himself up, dripping with cold water. Large round eyes were raised to Kniff. "Practice? With our daggers?" <p>

Kniff nodded hopefully. "You heal. Seems handy, right?" He grinned nervously. 

Drip also started grinning, and he nodded.

"Kniff! Wait up! What are you doing?!" 

Drip tripped and struggled in Kniff´s grip as the brown hurried away from the Tower Gate, back through Orntal. His still wet skin was smooth and slippery, but Kniff held on tightly. "I thought we were going to exercise!" 

"Come on," Kniff growled back bluntly. "Quick!" 

And the duo slowly disappeared from sight into the grey ashes, to eventually vanish into the jungle.  
><strong>(NORDBERG)<strong>

Somewhere else, someone was also being dragged along. Here the dragger was Lord Sayron, however, and the dragged was Seffec. The boy didn´t resist and would have come along on his own just as well – he knew he´d made a harsh mistake by letting the twelve infected people enter Nordberg so soon, so they could mutate inside the walls and murder a large portion of the people in their sleep. The Overlord was too furious to let go, however. His anger seemed to be fanned on by his new Mistress. Fay was almost purring with contentment at the thought of Seffec´s punishment, and Sayron was easily affected.  
>Eventually they reached the Tower Gate and Sayron roughly pushed the boy in. "Down you go," he growled.<p>

**(OUTSKIRTS OF ORNTAL)**

A rustling of the undergrowth made Jinx look up. She´d almost laid her head to Zephyros´ bloodied fur, tears in her eyes and soaked rags in her cramped hands. The bat was still breathing weakly, but with a rasping, wheezing sound indicating he wouldn´t last very long. His eyes were closed and blood had gotten everywhere. The wound seemed to be gruesomely enlarged by the soaked fur, and Jinx had barely been able to staunch the bleeding. 

If a predator would enter the scene now, she wouldn´t be able to do anything.  
>The rustling continued, and she half turned, her eyes narrowed and her one hand buzzing with purple sparks.<p>

Then Kniff tumbled into sight, and a moment later he yanked Drip from the bushes. The blue landed face-first into the leaves and slowly raised his head. 

What he saw was enough reason for his faltering breath. The clearing – created by all those broken stalks of tallgrass – was littered with dead grass bears, their black and white fur stained with red. Squarely between the bodies stood Jinx, her hands and arms covered in blood, pressed onto the wound of... 

"..._Ripped Wing?!_" 

Jinx exhaled heavily. "Drip, I´m sorry we´ve brought you here so suddenly, but we really need your help." 

The blue Minion opened and closed his mouth a few times. "You... you... you didn´t escape at all, back then! When you were dragged into the ravine!" He wildly blinked his large round eyes. "You´ve kept him! Oh, dear..." 

"You get the picture, Drip." Jinx wiped across her eyes. "I can´t force you, but please, if you have sympathy for a foolish horde leader... help us." Her eyes begged him, and Drip understood. He´d seen what Ruau meant to Sayron, and the other mounts for their Minions.

The blue clan had never known that, but he could imagine. And with that, he´d already helped this bat once before, as he lay in the Arena with his wings cut away. 

He stepped forward and lay both his hands against Zephyros´ neck. 

Immediately blue sparks appeared around his hands, spreading across the entire body of the bat. Jinx swiftly stepped back – she didn´t want her remaining wounds to be healed. Drip had to concentrate all his strength on her mount. 

For a few moments nothing seemed to happen, and Jinx held her breath. Then a shiver coursed through Zephyros´ body, and the scratches across his ribs and wings started to close themselves. The dripping of his neck wound stopped, though the enormous blood stain and the other stains remained in place. A little while later the bat opened his eyes and crawed softly, with incomprehension, while his gaze didn´t leave Jinx´s. 

The horde leader knelt down at his snout. The bat hadn´t gotten up yet, and Jinx remembered the way she´d felt when she´d lost much blood. "It´ll be alright, Zeph," she smiled. "It´s okay now." 

Slowly Drip erased all the wounds, up to the small bites from the edges of the wings. It clearly strained him to heal such a large animal by himself, but in the end he´d finished the job, and the blue stepped back, panting heavily. 

Jinx lay a hand on his shoulder, still kneeling at Zephyros´ head. "Thank you, Drip. You don´t know how..." 

"I´ve lost my mind," the Minion interrupted her. He turned to face her, still breathing heavily. "I mean it. You have a giant bat. You´re going against the Master´s will!" He turned to Kniff. "And you! You´re helping her?" 

"Yes," the brown simply replied. 

Drip stared at Kniff for a moment, an immeasurable look in his large eyes. Then he closed them briefly and rubbed his neck. "I´ve lost my mind," he repeated. "Jinx, this is incredible." He opened his eyes and looked at the horde leader, shaking his head. "You´ve been flying around on this beast all along?" 

"Yes," Jinx nodded with an apologetic grin. "It´s clear Sayron´s not going to allow it, so I´m not taking him to Arcadiopolis. But I couldn´t let him die. I´ve come to love him, as I´ve come to love the Netherworld... and you." 

"Features of a good horde leader," Drip briefly grinned. "Well, I don´t think he can fly now, but if you´re ever in the position to take me with you..." 

"I will," Jinx promised, smiling blissfully with the happy ending of this unexpected adventure. 

"Go back?" Kniff asked with a glance in the direction of Orntal. "Master might be back." 

"Right you are," Jinx nodded. She lay a hand on Zephyros´ head. "Can you walk, Zeph?" 

The bat crawed and hoisted himself up on his knuckles and hind legs. Drip stared at him as he rose up until his head was above the Minion´s own, even in this low, crouching position. 

Slowly the strange quartet walked back through the jungle, as the sun sank away on their left, first behind the trees and then behind the horizon.

**(NETHERWORLD/THRONE ROOM)**

Sayron and his captive descended into the throne room. Fay descended the stairs at that same moment, with gleaming golden eyes and a smile on her lips. There was no trace of the other two Mistresses. 

"My love," the queen spoke. "Such bad news." 

"Tie him up," Sayron growled at a quickly gathered group of Minions, tossing Seffec towards them. "Where´s Jinx?" 

Fay reached him. "I haven´t seen her yet, Lord." 

"Gnarl?" There was impatience in the Overlord´s voice, and Gnarl flattened his ears for a moment. This was not a good day. 

"I haven´t seen her either since this morning, Sire. I warned her not to do anything stupid today." 

"Sometimes a warning isn´t enough," Sayron grumbled. "Go get her!" he ordered a few of the Minions, now done tying Seffec to one of the hall´s pillars. The boy´s back was turned to the Overlord, and Sayron stepped towards him to rip his tunic from his body. The Ruborian´s dark skin was already criss-crossed by lighter scars, and Sayron decided to surmount all of Seffec´s previous lashings. 

The minutes passed, and the Minions returned. Without Jinx. 

"Nowhere to be found, Sire," one of them rasped. "Not at Barracks, Well or forge." He dropped her ropes to the black marble. "These were in her barrack." 

Sayron growled deeply, and the group flattened their ears as if they were one Minion. "Do I have to do everything myself?!" 

He hadn´t finished his sentence before lightning struck, deafening and blinding, right in the middle of the hall. Sayron, Fay and Gnarl abruptly shielded their eyes, and Seffec pressed his head against the pillar. 

As the crackling bolts died away Jinx was standing there, alone and with bloodied hands and clothes. Her eyes were wide at the sight of Sayron, and they widened even further as her gaze darted to the side and the pillar. "Seffec?!" she uttered. "Lord, what are you doing?" 

"I can ask the same to you," Sayron growled. "You can tell me where you came from this time later. First give this idiot thirty-five lashes – for starters." He snatched the ropes from the floor and tossed them to their owner. 

Jinx stared at him. "What did he do?" she asked, bewildered. 

"He´s cost me a large portion of my Nordbergian army," the Overlord growled. "Get to it, or I´ll give you some lashes too." 

"Do it, Jinx," Seffec´s voice sounded, muffled against the pillar. "I allowed the people from the Wasteland to mutate. I deserve this." 

Jinx took up her ropes with wide eyes and slightly trembling hands. She liked Seffec, ever since she´d taken him from the Arena. They didn´t see each other very often, but she still considered him a friend. 

She didn´t want to do this... 

...but she couldn´t defy Sayron´s orders. 

She closed her eyes, banned Zephyros and the Ruborian boy´s identity from her mind, and lashed out with her rope. The arcanium spikes hissed through the air, as they´d done so often as she struck an enemy. An Imperial soldier, an elf, a mermaid, grass bear or yeti... 

But there was the Ruborian boy´s scream, as his scarlet blood flew across the throne room and stained her ropes. Time and time again the ropes-turned-whips came down upon his bare back, with all the strength Jinx had gathered during her time in the Netherworld. She didn´t hold back, as she knew Sayron would notice. 

What had happened to the Overlord? He´d always been hard and rough, but not like this. She remembered Kelda pulling her and Sayron into a group hug one day, and Sayron hadn´t even protested... 

Now he stood there watching without emotion, Fay at his side. His eyes were glowing like embers from the darkness of his helmet. 

Jinx turned away and stared at Seffec again, as her twenty-first blow clashed on his back. The Ruborian leader was bleeding from all his long, criss-crossing wounds and was barely making any sound anymore. His screams had diminished after the tenth blow, but he was still conscious. He was strong and tough, and Jinx felt a strange kind of admiration for him, bittersweet and suffocated in grief. 

Eventually the thirty-fifth blow struck, and Jinx lowered her ropes. She tried her best to ban the tears from her eyes. "Lord," she mumbled. 

Sayron came forward and walked towards Seffec. He gripped the boy´s chin and turned his head towards himself. A raspy breath resounded. 

The Overlord looked at Jinx. "Until fifty." 

Jinx grimaced with disbelief. "Sayron...!" She winced as he came towards her and raised his hand. Then he seemed to hesitate, and he lowered his hand slowly. His eyes did retain their scarlet hue. "Until fifty," he repeated in a rough voice. 

Jinx swallowed the lump in her throat, wiped across her eyes and raised her ropes again.

Blow after blow rained down on Seffec´s back, and now the boy was screaming again. The new blows seemed to shake him awake. His back was a mess of bloody stripes, a pulp of loose flesh. 

After what seemed eternity the final strike came, and Jinx let her ropes fall from her hands. The tips and spikes were red and soaking. 

Fay opened her mouth, but Sayron spoke before her. "Enough," it resounded, softer than before. "I´ve seen enough." 

"Certainly, my love," Fay nodded. Her eyes gleamed wickedly. She turned as Sayron ascended the stairs, and followed him to the private quarters. The Netherworldly light seemed to dim as they left the throne room. 

A little later Jinx and Seffec were alone in the hall. The horde leader ran for the boy and quickly loosened his bonds. He fell down limply immediately, his messy black hair falling across his face. Jinx wiped it away. "I´m sorry," she muttered. "I didn´t want this." 

"It´s alright," the boy rasped. "It was an order. We have to obey orders." 

Jinx smiled as new tears welled up. "I´m starting to notice more and more often I don´t want to." 

Without the two noticing a little shade appeared in the entrance to the throne room. Yellow eyes lit up, beneath a silken hat. 

Seffec gazed up at Jinx, with hazy blue eyes in a dark face. Despite his pain, he was smiling.

"Jinx..." 

She froze. A very strange feeling nestled itself in the pit of her stomach. "Yes?" 

"That day in the Arena... when you took us with you..." He closed his eyes for a moment as he felt the sting of his wounds. "I didn´t go for Sayron. I went for you." 

Jinx frowned. "What do you mean?" 

"You saved us, you´re a great warrior, but my heart tightens with fear as you go to battle. I care for you, Jinx." He fell silent. "Jinx, I love you." 

The horde leader tensed. The strange feeling in her stomach changed. Her jaw tightened as she looked down on Seffec´s face. 

As he raised a hand to caress her cheek she backed away. Surprise and shock appeared in his eyes, and immediately two purple flames appeared in her hands. "Don´t touch me." 

"Jinx..." Seffec started, hurt in his voice. 

"Don´t touch me!" Jinx furiously stared down on him, her previous feelings forgotten. She´d once felt friendship towards him, maybe even more, but now he´d spoken the words she realized it didn´t apply to her anymore – quite the contrary. She felt a sudden, inexplicable hostility towards the Ruborian boy, even though he lay before her wounded and bleeding. 

"Don´t ever touch me again," she said breathlessly, and before Seffec could say or do anything else she´d snatched her bloodied ropes from the floor and ran away head over heels, out of the throne room and onto the floating rock.

**(BARRACKS)**

As she arrived in her barrack the dwelling shook under the violence with which she entered. Kniff sat up straight on his mat as Jinx thudded down and curled up against the wall. 

Soon a familiar claw was around her shoulder, and the horde leader smiled through her tears. 

The Minion gently rolled her over and looked at her seriously, his yellow eyes glowing in the gloom. He didn´t say anything, but waited patiently. 

Jinx kept looking at him. "He... he had me flog Seffec..." 

"Heard so," Kniff nodded quietly. 

"...He said he loved me." 

The Minion kept silent, but growled for a moment, barely audible. Jinx clenched her jaws again. 

"I´ll never love him." She inhaled and exhaled deeply, lying on her mat, and her eyes almost glowed. "I love the Netherworld, I love Zephyros, I love climbing and swooping through trees and cutting throats. I love the Minions, I love you, Kniff! Never in my life will I love... love a _human!_" She shot up straight and abruptly fell silent after this eruption, and pressed a hand to her mouth. Then she pulled that hand away. "I´ll never love a human," she spoke, in a lower voice now. "I am no longer human, Kniff, I´m a Minion, I´m yours and you´re mine." She smiled, as her voice broke and she could no longer keep the tears at bay. "I´ve sold my soul, I think, if there is such a thing." 

Kniff stared at her, his eyes wide beneath his hat. For a moment all was silent as they looked into each other's eyes, both too astonished to speak. Then Kniff broke the silence. 

"Jinxie. Know... know what Zap meant with sign." He blinked his eyes and swallowed painfully, and Jinx shot forward to support him as he slumped forward. "Kniff, what´s wrong?" 

He looked up at her, his eyes half closed now. "Sign... sign means..." He fell silent and jolted back, and his eyes seemed to roll away. Inky black replaced the glowing yellow. 

Jinx gasped for breath. "_Kniff!_" 

"There is a form in the deep darkness," the Minion spoke, and the horde leader almost jumped up in shock. The Minion whose head now lay in her lap didn´t sound like Kniff. His voice had changed, and he spoke in unbroken sentences. 

"There is a winged form in the deep darkness, a form with three heads and six flaming eyes. He _moves_," Kniff hissed, and his mouth twisted into a terrible grin. "He moves like a snake. And there is a Ruborian in the shadow of his wings, horned, with black-lined eyes and a tail, shrouded in black fog..." 

"Kniff, what are you talking about? What´s happening?" Jinx was breathing rapidly, terrified for her friend. His words started to get through to her, however, and a part of her was intrigued. A three-headed, winged form? Black-lined eyes?

_The Unholy Lord spread his wings over me... one for each of his three crowns..._

´Crown´ could also mean ´head´ in dwarven, she suddenly remembered. 

Kniff stirred in her arms. "But the Three-headed One is also a Minion, a Minion with black skin and horns between which a wild fire dances. He outstretches his hand... but touch him and he falls apart in a fiery, poisonous and icy flash..." 

Jinx shook her head and tried to see a connection. "The Three-headed One? Kniff, are you talking about a god?"

_A fiery, poisonous and icy heart..._

Three heads, three Darklords, three Tower Hearts, three strange Minions with black-lined eyes. 

"Kniff, are... are Fever, Stabbit and Goudvis gods? The Three-headed One..." She gasped. "Are they _one_ god?!" 

Kniff jolted again. "Falling... falling..." he groaned, and his voice started to return to a raspy tone, like the Kniff she knew. He closed his eyes tightly and spasmed one last time, then his eyes snapped open again. Glowing yellow and reassuring, normal. 

He shivered, swallowed and then looked straight at Jinx. "...Jinxie..." 

"Kniff," she whispered. She inadvertently caressed his ears. "What _was_ that?" 

The Minion exhaled slowly and collapsed. His eyes drooped shut, his ears went limp in her hands, and his breathing became calm and regular. He´d fallen asleep. 

Jinx lay him down and then outstretched on her mat herself. It´d take a while before she´d be able to sleep.

It was late the following morning as a small figure stepped off the floating rock. Sayron was already in the throne room, but he wasn´t sitting on the throne. He was practically dancing around in the middle of the hall, and he was at the heart of a lethal whirlwind. He had a new weapon clutched in his hands, and he swung it around so wildly it was a miracle he could keep holding on. 

Giblet had outdone himself. It was a giant, spiky mace, with a flaming red stone for a heart. That stone traced a fiery line through the air with every move the Overlord made. Sayron´s expression was invisible as always, but his joy was tangible. 

Giblet and Quaver stood watching together at the throne room´s wall, both beaming and rubbing their claws together. They looked up as the small figure walked past them, however. 

"Hey, Jinx." 

"Hi, guys." The horde leader tapped her bandana briefly and then walked on, straight for the throne and Gnarl. Then she shoved the copper case into his face, without speaking another word. 

Gnarl spluttered for a moment and stared at her in indignation, but then took the cylinder into his fragile, wrinkly hands. He opened it and let the scroll slide into his other hand. He looked at the contents briefly. Then he paled. "Where did you get this?" he hissed at Jinx. 

The horde leader clenched her jaws. "Your information first." 

"I don´t think so," was the answer. "This is a unique scroll! These are..." He lowered his voice. "Jinx, these are Lord Atrej´s earliest memoires..." 

"Explains why it was sealed so well," she smiled, not at all displeased with herself. 

"Jinx, where have you _been?_" 

"What´s in it? I know you can read and speak every living and dead language of this world, even that of the Silent Order of Angelis..." 

Gnarl gave her a death glare. "Jinx, I´m lowering my voice. Even Sayron can´t hear this. This is Minion business!" 

"The business of the Unholy Three-headed Lord?" Jinx asked casually. She couldn´t help but enjoy Gnarl´s reaction. The ancient Minion paled and clawed at his chest, and his breathing was agitated for some time afterwards. He was lucky Sayron was so busy with his new weapon. 

Jinx grinned. "Well, old man?" 

Gnarl turned away and tucked the cylinder into his cloak. "You don´t have more than a name," he spoke weakly, quavering. He really sounded as old as he was now, worn with age like a Nordbergian greybeard. It was unsettling, Jinx realized. Gnarl was always vicious and sharp as a newly forged blade, never weak... 

"That´s right," she admitted cautiously. 

"Good," Gnarl sighed. "I won´t ask how you got it. Compromise, Minion Mistress. You won´t tell me where you got that scroll, I won´t tell you what´s in it." 

"What? No!" Jinx exclaimed angrily. She grasped at Gnarl´s cloak, but then pulled her hands back in bewilderment. The scroll was gone. 

Gnarl winked. "Get up earlier, Purple Scourge. You won´t trick me that easily."

In the days after that Jinx had no time to worry about the mystery she still didn´t really grasp anymore. Minions were to be dragged from Hives, weapons were to be forged, ranks were to be established in the arenas beneath the Tower. It was there that Jinx spent most of her time, picking Minions for the hordes, the front lines and the defenses. Archers, clubbers, bomb carriers, riders and walkers were appointed to their tasks. She dared to slip away one more time to go flying with Zephyros, and that one time she made a holder for the crossbow and attached it to his saddle. That day was the only time she got any rest. Zephyros was her relaxing hobby, but the time for hobbies was coming to an end. 

Kniff actually exercised with Drip for a few times, and the two gradually got to like each other more and more. Whenever Jinx saw them together she was reminded of times long past, when her brown friend continuously tagged along with Parch, the red that´d taught her to climb. 

Giblet and Grubby finished working on the catapults and ballistas, and paid a visit to the Tower Heart. They stated that if the Heart would power the Tower Gates, they could get the siege weapons up, wherever Sayron wanted them to be. 

Jinx was there when they inspected the Heart. Now she was paying attention to it, a fiery glow did play over the surface.

_A fiery, poisonous and icy heart..._

And then that day finally came. The day everyone had been looking forward to, with high expectations and fear. 

Side by side, Sayron and Jinx stepped onto the floating rock and flew to the Barracks. There all the Minions that would join the land march were gathered, everyone undertaking the long walk through the north of the Empire to Arcadiopolis by the sea. There were greens on their spiders and reds on their salamanders, blues and browns on foot. There was the red with the metal hook for an arm. There was the brown with the red parrot. There was the blue with the large dagger. There was the green with the one blue sock and the little spider Minions clinging to his body, until they swiftly let go and climbed the walls to look at the procession from there as it put itself in motion. 

And there was the brown Minion with the black and white silken hat, walking along at Jinx´ side from the moment she passed him, at a steady pace both solemn and sinister.  
>The travelling army turned their backs on the Tower on the other side of the void and walked deeper into the Barracks, past the lava flow, the hanging nets of the greens and the basins of the blues. There, deep in the cave wall, where Minions didn´t venture, lay a carved staircase leading up, all the way to the upper world. <p>

The Black Gate. Above the gateway lay a wide arch, covered in ancient runes. Jinx couldn´t read them, but she did recognize an early form of regular letters. One word seemed to return, again and again... 

_Taegan._

Then they were through and the long climb to the surface started. 

The climb actually lasted for days. The army had to make camp several times along the way, lit by lanterns and glowing Minion eyes. Strange creatures flitted away before the flickering light, leathery wings and jointed legs rustled in the darkness above and below them. A few times the wall had been broken open and the golden, liquid light of a lava flow shone in.

Every now and then solid pools of lava lay across the stairs and the steps had been erased.  
>Then they came too high for lava, and they sometimes heard the rush of a raging river. Jinx shivered at the memory of the icy cold, savage water that had dragged her into the Netherworld. <p>

And then, suddenly, days after they´d left the Barracks, a beam of light pierced into the shaft, sharp and silvery like a shined knife. 

Sayron was the first to hoist himself out, Jinx followed soon after. Minions gathered around them, and their claws sunk away in crisp, fresh snow. 

A mountain landscape outstretched before them. They were looking straight into the south, not into Nordberg, but the Empire. They were standing halfway down a mountain slope, and not far from them a rushing waterfall plunged into the valley the river had created; twisting and swaying into the south. They would be able to follow the river. 

Kniff straightened out next to Jinx, deeply breathed in the crystal clear mountain air and then howled, a pure, chilling tone. More browns followed his lead. 

From the valley answering howls went up. The browns would soon be able to pick their own mounts and continue on wolfback. 

Jinx looked back once, into the darkness of the shaft. Then she exchanged glances with Sayron. "An end," she smiled. 

"And a beginning," the Overlord added. "We will slay the Emperor. We will take over the Empire." 

"World domination lies within our grasp," Jinx spoke, an uncontrollable grin on her face. Then she joined the Minions, and slipped and slid down the icy mountain slope, after the wild hordes, into the Empire.


	35. Battle of the Northern Fields

**General Herbison is sitting at his desk in the Netherworld living quarters writing: And with a clash of lightning the door swung open to reveal…**

**Jinx slowly opens the door and walks into the room.**

**General: A woman of such beauty that even the darkest shadows could not conceal.**

**Jinx freezes on the spot.**

**General: In the grip of her unstoppable magical will, her victim gasped for mercy.**

**Jinx creeps up on the General.**

**General: Her eyes spoke of wonder and things beyond any mortal understanding as her iron grip crushed the life from his body.**

**Jinx crouches down so she is level with his head: Boo!**

**The General jumps violently and falls off his chair: Hostiles! Security!**

**Jinx lifts the paper: What are you writing anyway?**

**General takes them back: Just some ideas. Anyway, disclaimer time. This story belongs to Sunjinjo as do her original characters. Hope you enjoy.**

**Jinx grabs the papers and runs away as the General pursues.**

**Battle of the Northern Fields**

An alarm bell was ringing in Litatio, but too late, too late. 

Already black smoke was rising from the small town at the base of the northern mountains, just inside the borders of the Glorious Empire. Litatio itself lay in a valley amidst sloping hills, and only the estates and farmlands around it rose above it, but the chaos was visible from miles around. The town was so remote, however, that help would probably never arrive in time. 

Some legions were encamped in the town, and those had their hands more than full with the current problem. 

Darkness had descended on them with the dawn, and it wasn't planning on leaving any survivors.  
>A giant armoured form waltzed through the streets, seated on a huge hoofed animal with horns a few feet wide, flinging around a heavy mace, every blow accompanied by cracking skulls and breaking bones. Jumping and swinging between the walls was a black-haired girl with a glistening sword already dripping with blood. Every now and then she shot into a window feet-first, and every time screams and gurgling followed. As she came to the ground it was upon the back of a grey wolf, at the head of an entire pack, ridden by brown creatures with large pointed ears and varying headgear. <p>

Chaos and death had stormed into Litatio, in the shape of the Overlord, the Purple Scourge and four hordes of colourful demons. And they were laughing.

This wasn't more than practise to Lord Sayron. He could just as well have travelled around Litatio, but he wanted to stamp his influence on the land, and ensure no messengers escaped the town while he was at it. When he'd be done with them they'd think again before they dared to do so. 

He still felt a bit strange; to be out and about without any upcoming Tower Gates. He wouldn't see the Netherworld again before Solarius' head rolled over the marble of his own palace, he'd sworn that to himself. He'd return as an Emperor, or not at all. 

A bright red parrot whizzed past his head, to strike a man to his right. Razorlike claws scratched deep wounds over one eye, a sharpened beak pecked at the other. A scream, hands clawed at bloody, empty sockets, and a brown Minion wearing a black bandana finished the job. Scabies affectionately scratched Duda's head as the parrot landed on his shoulder. 

Salamanders shot over the walls and roofs of the town like fiery flashes, and breathed their fire into every window, every door and every chimney they could find. The black smoke rising from the valley was mainly their doing, and the red Minions were as happy as could be – Litatio was mainly built with wood and straw. It lay beside the river they'd followed from the Black Gate, and the people were running around with buckets of cold water like crazy, but it was in vain. The fire of the reds turned out to be very hard to extinguish. 

One of the reds looked on in appreciation as his salamander spewed flames into an open window with wide open jaws, as the screams of the inhabitants slowly died away in crackling fire. Eventually his mount coughed and closed his smoking maw, to look up at him blinking. They descended along the wall. Not a heartbeat later the roof collapsed in a whirl of flying cinders. 

"Nice, Nitro!" another red laughed, on the other side of the street. 

"Not nice enough," the red sizzled. "Miss something." His salamander hiccupped up a quivering fireball in agreement. Then the red looked up; somewhere further away in the neighbourhood a thundering explosion resounded, and a flaming mushroom cloud ascended to the morning sky. 

Fever was warming up. 

"That I mean," Nitro chuckled, rubbing his white-hot claws together, shooting away to the chain of explosions twisting itself through Litatio.

The Overlord and the Minions had rapidly spread through the town, and so the few soldiers present had been forced to do the same. The legions had been broken in many cases, and they were far from efficient. The people themselves had weapons too, however, in the form of short swords and axes and more often in that of pitchforks and scythes. Here at the edge of town, where the farmland started, small groups of reckless Minions were still doing battle with the hardened farmers of this mountain village. These were strong Minions, and often more than a little insane… in a good way. 

Except for one. 

There was a green flash, jumping over the backs of the men as if they were trampolines, and with every jump a fountain of blood flew with him. The spray of opened arteries accompanied him like a reversed red carpet. Another thing accompanying him was a constant stream of terrible, high-pitched, insane giggling. 

At long last, Stabbit had found his entertainment again. 

The rising sun glistened on his claw knives, his eyes shone with insane sadism and all his teeth were bared, as blood and laughter flowed out between them. He created a path for the rest of the hordes; a path of screaming, collapsing, weakened or dead men. 

And then there was the sudden silver shine of a scythe's blade, and Stabbit thudded down onto the drenched, dark earth. His head rolled on for a moment. 

The man wielding the scythe looked down on the green Minion with satisfaction, then he turned and went for a couple of browns, some of them riding wolves. The predators jumped up at him, but he fenced them off with the scythe's grip. 

Behind him the headless Minion's fingers twitched. 

The frontmost wolf was beaten back. A blow of the scythe pulled a deep cut across the snout, and the beast yelped, but then that changed into a rattling growl. The brown on its back growled with it, and twisted the short, jagged sword around in his hand. 

Claws pulled the body forward and grabbled around. A farmer, burning and running away from a few red Minions on salamanders with their maws wide open, threatened to kick away the head that lay a little distance away, but at that moment the head opened its eyes and the mouth twisted in a sudden, sharp hiss. The claws found the head, green light flashed, Stabbit kicked himself away from the ground and suddenly there was another head rolling over the fertile soil outside Litatio, a human head with wide eyes of surprise. The scythe thudded down, and the brown Minion with the jagged sword chuckled in appreciation. 

Stabbit giggled. He blinked up at the people around him, licking his bloodied teeth and grinning with their sudden fear. 

"His head was chopped clean off!" one of the farmers exclaimed. "He isn't mortal!" 

"We'll see about that," a deeper voice spoke, and Stabbit spun around, claws spread and suddenly hissing with aggression. 

Then a sharpened blade descended upon him, a weapon quite a bit more professional than the scythe. There was nothing Stabbit could do as his skull was cracked and the sword sliced through his body as a hot knife through butter, and neatly divided him in two pieces. 

Then suddenly a wolf hung from the soldier's muscular arm, and then suddenly he no longer had an arm. The man roared up at the darkening sky, and the battle raged on. 

Not much later it was over, and the two bloody halves of the green Minion still lay on the blood-drenched field. 

And they started glistening with a green light.

The hornbeast slowly walked through the ruined, scorched streets and let the occasional skull crack like a walnut beneath his hooves. Blood stained the rough hide, but it was mainly the blood of others. On his back the Overlord still sat, looking out over the chaos with fiery eyes. 

Lord Sayron slowly drove the survivors together, assisted by his Minions and the Purple Scourge, jumping through the streets and dragging people out of their hiding places as she went, to gather them on a small market square in the middle of town. The remains of stalls lay scattered around, broken and blackened. 

The hornbeast came to a standstill. Sayron dismounted, and Jinx came down next to him, her knees bent and one hand on the ground. As she straightened out the two grinned at each other briefly. "Nice work, Lord," the horde leader nodded. 

"You too." Sayron chuckled for a moment, and then turned to the remaining people. Many of them were injured, but they'd survive, if they made the right decision that was.

"People of Litatio," the Overlord started with devilish delight in his voice. "As you might suspect by now, I'm on my way to the capital. If you want to see the next sunrise, you'll have to come with me." 

"They'll only slow us down," Jinx muttered from the corner of her mouth. 

"I know, but they'd be a good addition, survivors are strong," Sayron muttered back. "What say you?" he asked the people in a louder voice. 

For a moment all was quiet. The people looked at each other uneasily. 

On the southern farmlands a slight tremor coursed through the soil. A few bodies moved. 

"What say you?!" the Overlord shouted. 

A young man stepped forward. For a moment his dark eyes pierced Sayron's. Then he spat on the ground. "Never!" 

"Very well," Sayron growled. He reached backwards to take his mace from his back.  
>He never had the chance to finish that movement. <p>

Even as the young man clenched his fists and narrowed his eyes at the Overlord an enormous tumult coursed through the ground underneath the square. The cobblestones undulated, some damaged houses around them partly collapsed. 

Then the ground below the people opened. 

A fissure ran through the market square, and Sayron and Jinx stepped back in fright as it reached them. The widest point lay directly beneath the group of survivors, however, a point where the cobblestones fell away in a deep hole, where dark earth was visible at first… and then _teeth_. 

A gruesome mouth, circular and certainly five meters across, came to light to swallow the people. The teeth just kept going, all the way into the darkness where nothing else was visible. 

And then that darkness came up. 

As if an Everlightian forest giant was erupting from the ground as quick as lightning, a dark pillar of armour-like scales appeared from Litatio's soil. It seemed to have no end, and the Minions flattened their ears in the shadow of the apparition. Sayron gripped his mace so tightly his knuckles paled, and Jinx gasped for breath as she cowered down slightly. 

This was a Ruborian sand worm. 

The rumbling of the earth died away, as did the screams of the people. The creature couldn't close its mouth and blood gushed over the armour plates as the eyeless head turned to the Overlord and his followers. Sayron swallowed. 

"_Bahi_, my Lord." 

The voice was soft in the sudden silence, and had a Ruborian accent. The Overlord spun around, his eyes wide. 

There, leaning against a cracked wall, was a small, slender Ruborian man with wooden beads in his black hair. 

Omari, the mage who'd left Nordberg during their travel through Fay's Last Sanctuary. Omari, who'd returned to Ruboria. Omari… 

"…Do you control that sand worm?!" Sayron asked, almost breathlessly. 

"I offered him blood and fear," the mage spoke as he stepped forward. "More food than he'd get in Ruboria." He bared his white teeth in a grin. "He came all by himself." 

"Unholy Lord," Jinx whispered, staring up at the beast, scarcely realizing she'd taken on a new god to swear by. "With this creature..." 

Sayron stared between the sand worm and Omari for a moment. "...I hadn't expected this," he uttered. "Make sure you keep an eye on it, will you?" He doubted he could dominate the sand worm with magic before the beast realized it and swallowed him whole. He also doubted he could sleep with this creature in the soil below him. 

"Certainly, my Lord!" Omari bowed deeply. 

"Master!" A brown Minion ran into the square panting and tripping, almost falling over with surprise and fear as he saw the sand worm towering above the buildings. He composed himself surprisingly quick, however. "Messengers, Master. Carrier pigeons. Minc, Masud and others didn't shoot everything." 

Sayron kept still for a moment, then turned back to Omari. "Make sure nobody gets away."  
>The mage nodded and walked over to the sand worm. Briefly he spoke to the creature, a flood of quick syllables in his own tongue. Then the sand worm disappeared into the earth again, surprisingly swift and quietly. Just the dark hole remained. <p>

A light tremor turned south, the direction into which the messengers would hurry to Arcadiopolis. Omari bowed to the Overlord again. "It is done." 

On the southern pastures the ground was torn open again and again, in rapid succession, and every time the screams were cut off quickly in a rumble of earth and rock. Even the few carrier pigeons that'd escaped the archers' arrows were intercepted. 

But high up in the air, above the thin veils of mist in the valley, one bird soared south, a gleaming copper cylinder bound to its leg.

**(LATER)**

The march went on, ever further. 

On the backs of wolves, salamanders and spiders, and in one case on that of a hornbeast the dark army sped through the increasingly lower mountains and hills in the north of the Empire. They also travelled outside the hours of daylight, following the rivers on their inevitable path to sea. They came through some more villages and small towns, and they left no survivors in either of them. Omari's sand worm intercepted everything. 

On the back of her rough wolf, at the head of the brown horde, Jinx enjoyed the speed and the wild travel every day. But every day, a trace of fear nestled itself deeper into the pit of her stomach, and she knew she wasn't the only one. The moment she'd been living for, for over a year – ever since she'd joined Sayron – was coming very close now, and there was a chance this would be the end for her. If she'd fall there'd be no Well for her, not another second chance. 

And then finally the day came that, early in the morning, the few wolf riders they'd sent forward came back very quickly with news that made everyone's heart skip a beat. 

"Camped soldiers," one of them panted. "Knew we'd be here!" 

Sayron stepped forward, seated on Ruau. "Then this is our moment," he spoke. He straightened his back. "Gnarl, how close are we to the city?" 

The advisor coughed to loosen his voice. _"Closer than you think, Sire."_ He chuckled. _"I think we couldn't have gotten the Tower Gate any closer under the influence of the anti-magic shield."  
><em> 

Sayron kept silent for a moment. "That close?" He took a deep breath, almost unable to believe the moment had finally arrived. "Gnarl, bring up my armies." 

_"I'm already on the job, Sire, the throne room is filling up rapidly,"_ the old Minion snickered. _"If you'd be so kind as to climb this hill."_

Sayron spurred on the hornbeast and the duo ascended up the smooth slope of the grass-covered hill. On their left the sun rose into the sky and outstretched their shadows to the right. Around them the Minions climbed up as well. 

Sayron stretched his neck to look over the ridge. He held his breath as more and more came to sight. 

The first thing he could see was a blue haze, strangely out of place in the rosy morning sky. As he climbed up further this turned out to be floating in the air above a magnificent city going on as far as the eye could see. Enormous white marble buildings with crafted walls, pillars, terracotta roof tiles, elegant towers and statues. The farmlands and fields leading down to the city walls were filled with slender, tall trees gently moving in the wind.  
>Arcadiopolis, nestled safely beneath the anti-magic shield. The capital of the Glorious Empire, seat of power of Emperor Solarius. At last. <p>

The slender trees weren't the only thing filling the fields. Many of them had been chopped down, and the wood was no doubt part of the many, many tents on the fields now. Probably of the ballistae, too. 

Arcadiopolis had known they were coming. Omari's sand worm had let a messenger escape somewhere. And now the fields around the city were filled with encamped soldiers, fully aware of their approach, ready for battle. 

It was only fitting they were too. 

Sayron's eyes fell to a wooden tower, hung with red and golden banners, within which a large number of archers was probably encamped. A nice vantage point, and very close by as well. Too close to his liking. 

That didn't last long. 

Beneath his gaze the tower shook, and then burst apart. The massive beams gave way in a shower of splinters, the banners ripped. And then something worked its way up from the ground beneath. The brief screams of the camping archers quickly died away. 

It wasn't Omari's sand worm. It was a Tower Gate. 

The wind blew in the direction of the dark traveling army, and more hill ridges largely obscured the gate from view from the walls. This wouldn't draw anyone's attention yet.  
>Black claws spread to the sky and an azure beam of light drifted up, straight from the Netherworld. Next to Sayron Jinx appeared on the hilltop, riding her wolf, and together they looked on as the first of their soldiers clambered from the gate. Around the Tower Gate four Minion gates dug themselves from the ground, and those started spewing forth warriors soon as well. <p>

Slowly the depression behind the hill started filling up with Ruborians, Nordbergians, former Imperials from Everlight, and elves. Seffec, the wounds on his back fully healed, took position at the head of the desert dwellers, and it was clear his loyalty to Sayron hadn't been diminished yet – he gnashed his teeth at seeing the walls of the city where he'd served in the Arena for years. 

Kivner joined the Nordbergians, Marcus Cassius the Everlightians. The last one to step from the gate was a woman in a black dress, briefly taking the lead of the elven soldiers – an apparition with flaming red hair, gleaming golden eyes and a royal demeanour. Sayron and Fay exchanged affectionate glances. As she joined his side, the Minions just kept pouring from their gates, a seemingly endless stream of brown, red, green and blue. 

The full army of the Netherworld had assembled, just outside Arcadiopolis, but also just outside the Empire's vision. And it was enormous. 

The mass of humans, elves and Minions outstretched, swallowing and enveloping the original traveling army, and it went on to a whole lot of hill ridges further north, where they'd come from. The once quiet landscape was a ravel of activity now, full of soft voices and the clanging of weapons. Wolves, taken directly from the Netherworld, growled and yelped at each other, filled with as much excitement as the Minions on their backs. Spiders and salamanders clicked and creaked at each other. Blue Minions threw up healing blue sparks as practice. The yeti came out of the Tower Gate, rid of his cage and growling with withheld bloodlust. 

Then a small group of Minions emerged from the gate, carrying the gleaming, fiery Tower Heart. 

Sayron dismounted and remained standing next to his mount, a hand on the rough head. For a moment he laid his hands on the Heart, and lightning flashed between his fingers, more powerful than ever. He allowed Jinx to do the same to strengthen her magic. Then he straightened out and raised his flaming mace up high. The sunlight spattered from the dark arcanium. "My armies!" he called out, and the wind carried his words over the men and Minions. "You don't know how proud I am to see you here today." 

Next to him Jinx looked out over the mass of Minions, beaming with joy and pride, but then realized Sayron was happier with the humans. _Careful, Lord. Being an Overlord is mainly about the Minions. Don't grow too fond of the people you dominate._

"You've all suffered because of the Empire, as have I." Sayron's eyes narrowed. "But this is the hour of our vengeance." 

There was no cheering, but only because the soldiers would definitely hear it. The eyes of the men and Minions were ablaze. 

"For Nordberg, Ruboria and Everlight. For blood and death. For magic!" 

"For the one true Emperor!" someone called out, and Sayron's eyes flared. 

"For the one true Emperor, Lord," Jinx spoke softly. She exchanged glances with him. "It's time." 

The Overlord nodded silently, and raised his weapon once more, as he mounted his hornbeast.

As the armies slowly put themselves into motion and spread to the top of the hill ridge, three Minions stayed behind, close to the Tower Heart. Or actually four. The red and blue Minions with the black-lined eyes looked up in surprise as two greens joined them; one on foot, the other riding a large black spider. Both of them were giggling, with one voice. The effect was eerie. 

"What did you do this time, Stabbit," the red sighed, not making the effort of speaking in broken sentences like a normal red Minion would.

The blue chuckled briefly. "It had to happen one day, brother." 

"As long as you fuse later," Fever growled. "This is our moment too, and I don't want you stealing the spotlight…" The glow of his eyes flared to almost white for a moment, and the same happened to his hands. He could barely contain his inner fire. 

"Easy, brother," Goudvis grinned. "Leave something for us." 

With a crooked grin the red outstretched his glowing hands, and the other two – or three – took them, to form a square. Four pairs of black-lined eyes closed. 

Dark clouds rolled in from the north, to spread with the armies of the Netherworld, across the northern fields.

**(IMPERIAL FORCES)**

Fabius Amicus, a soldier in a green tunic and with a long bow strung around his back, climbed the high walls of Arcadiopolis, yawning and rubbing his eyes. It was time to relieve the night's watch again. 

With him, more men ascended to the wall. "Boys," he spoke, still tired, but busy waking up. "Time for the shift, come on." 

"Hm?" 

Leaning against a watchtower, his helmet half across his eyes, his predecessor turned to him. Fabius shook his head. "Sleeping on the job? You know what's coming for us, don't you?" 

There was no answer – his colleague just groaned as he stretched until his back creaked. In the meantime Fabius' eyes dwelt to the northern horizon.

Dark clouds rolled in across the hill ridges. Briefly a shiver crept up his own back. 

That shiver grew in intensity as the call of a wolf suddenly reached his ears. 

And another, and another. And then it was a chorus of wild, bloodthirsty singing voices.  
>Then it died away, but in a way that was even worse. <p>

Fabius snatched the bow off his back and gripped the wood so firmly his knuckles paled. His eyes were wide and his breathing quickened. 

A figure appeared above the hilltop. 

Even from this distance he could see what it was. A grey Nordbergian wolf, with a demon riding its back – pointy, frayed ears, flashing eyes, a raised sword. The howl resounded again. 

Then all hell streamed down the hill. 

Before he knew what he was doing Fabius' legs already carried him across the wall at breakneck speed, screaming in panic. "He's here! The Demon Lord is here!" He reached the central watchtower on the wall and started hoisting on the bell rope like a lunatic. It wasn't long before the deep ring of the bell resounded across the northern fields. The tents shook beneath the violence of suddenly waking soldiers. 

"Bring up the catapults! The ballistae! _Everything!_" 

The chime of the bell rang out over the city, and even though it resounded very softly there, a figure still appeared on the balcony of the Imperial Palace, deep in the heart of Arcadiopolis. 

Emperor Solarius looked up at the dark clouds in his morning sky. His gloved hands tightened their grip on the balustrade.

**(BATTLEFIELD)**

Uphill Jinx had taken it easy. The fear in her stomach had reached its peak, at the same time as she reached the top of the hill. 

But down… down things went a lot faster. 

She had no choice. Her wolf flew forward, at the head of the pack, and the wolves behind forced her forward just as much as she pulled them along. 

And her fear evaporated like water in a frying pan of bloodthirstiness and the joy of war. 

Jinx raised her sword up high and screamed until she was out of breath. Behind her the Minions and wolves followed her example, a chorus of fear-inducing, raspy voices. She could almost see how the Imperial soldiers backed away in fear… 

There was the front line. She could see the tents emptying, the soldiers gathering from the fields and from within the city itself. Ropes and ladders were lowered from the walls, and at the same time catapults and ballistae were raised up and readied. The first giant boulders were pulled back in their leather slings, and then they came down whistling and screaming through the rosy sky above the battlefield. 

"Dodge!" the horde leader screamed. "Split up!" She briefly glanced back and saw the Minions following her order. She herself stayed her course, straight for one of the oncoming rocks. She raised a hand, pumped through a flood of fortified magic and enveloped the boulder in it. A mighty crack followed, and then it was only dust and rock chippings descending upon her. She pulled back her hand and grinned wildly. Now she could actually see the soldiers backing away. 

She ended up amidst them anyway, not a heartbeat later. 

The impact whacked all air from her lungs, but fortunately not from those of her wolf. The beast burst through the front line, flew into his first victim and immediately ripped off his throat. Blood spattered onto the rough fur and the armour of his rider. Everywhere around them the scene repeated itself as the brown horde plunged into battle. 

War. More than a skirmish, more than survival. More than the relatively simple battles for Nordberg and Orntal. War was something else. 

But Jinx knew she enjoyed it more than anything else she'd experienced thus far. 

The Empire's soldiers were well-trained. Though they'd only just woken up they fought like lions already, and Jinx could see there weren't just green and blue tunics now, but black ones as well – Solarius' highest elite, of the same calibre as the Arena guards.

She saw Minions fall already, and she knew Mortis was saving lives in rapid succession down in the Netherworld – Sayron had ordered him to resurrect his strongest Minions without further command. There was more than enough life force, thanks to the people of Nordberg and Everlight. The stream from the Minion gates would never stop, not until the city was theirs. 

It didn't take long for the horde leader and her wolf to be covered in blood. The wolf was stabbed or struck by arrows multiple times, but Jinx could stop most of those and the animal only grew more ferocious with pain. She herself acquired deep cuts over her arms as well, and one across her chest that went so deep her breastplate was split by it, but the healing magic did its job and soon only the blood remained. 

She realized the other clans joined them in battle. Salamanders shot past, low to the ground, and burnt through the legs of the men with the fire pouring from their opened maws, or caused pillars of flame consuming them whole. Spiders lightly floated over the heads of the soldiers so the green Minions on their backs could cut throats to the left and right or jump over to human backs. 

The human armies didn't think twice either. Along the entire breadth of the Imperial lines the Nordbergians, Ruborians, Everlightians and elves jumped into battle, with swords, axes, clubs and elegant bows. Quite a lot of them fell as well, however. Jinx growled – she didn't value the mortal side of their army all that much anymore. This war would be won by Minions. 

Sayron had stayed behind for a bit, but when he came forward it was with a shining mace and all the savage power Ruau had in his body. He was seated high enough to fling around severed heads, limbs and entire bodies with every blow of his weapon. 

It didn't take long before they'd taken a hill closer to the city and could defend it, in the middle of the battle. There the Overlord kept standing, and he raised up his free hand. "Now, Gnarl!" 

_"Certainly, Sire,"_ the old advisor spoke. A tremor coursed through the ground, a Tower Gate unfolded itself, and then a construction of heavy wooden beams took up all space between the peaks. The first catapult of the Netherworld, given strength by the nearby Tower Heart. 

Five Minions hoisted themselves onto the construction, but two of them were shot full of arrows immediately, as was the wood of the catapult itself. Sayron hissed and plunged back into battle, to make sure the catapult could be readied. Soon the first boulders were loaded into the sling and their own rocks thundered down upon the Empire's side. 

It seemed the Empire wanted to answer to that. The next catapult boulder to come down onto the Netherworld's side didn't simply crush the dark army, but exploded in a vortex of fire and light. Dozens of Minions were killed instantly, and many others were flung away or ran off screaming and burning. And more of these new boulders sailed through the air, as harbingers of their defeat. 

_"Not good, Sire,"_ Gnarl remarked. Sayron looked up at the city walls furiously. _"We'll have to take those down quick, or nothing will be left of our army!"_

As if to worsen the situation, massive forms let themselves fall from the walls. Gargantuans, and Eradicators with their magic-sucking cannons. Some figures in dark blue robes stepped onto the wall between the catapults – Sentinels. _"They're really outdoing themselves, aren't they?"_

"Time we do the same," Sayron snarled.

**(BATTLEFIELD)**

"Did he say it?" 

Fever opened his eyes and looked straight into Goudvis'. "Since when do you obey people?"  
>The blue Minion shrugged. "Well. I think this Minion body is taking its toll. Obeying feels pleasant. Ironic, no?" <p>

"We were going to do it anyway," the red chuckled. He looked between the two green Minions. "Yes, brother. It's time indeed." 

They let go of each other's hands. Then each of them hunched over, trembling and convulsing violently. The two green Minions melted together with a sickening sound.  
>And the skin on their backs started moving, as if something stirred beneath.<p>

**(BACK TO SAYRON)**

The battle raged on. 

Sayron tried to get closer to the walls or at least get another catapult above ground, but he didn't fare so well. Every ballista in the wide surroundings that was still intact now concentrated on him, and there was also the problem of the approaching Gargantuans. Ruau scraped his hooves across the ground, but the mountains of human flesh and muscle mirrored that movement, and they were with more. 

As Omari's sand worm erupted from the ground time and time again, and cast up the ballistae and some nearby watchtowers in explosions of cracking wood and screaming soldiers, the Gargantuans closed in on Sayron more and more. Then they thundered forward. 

Catapult boulders flew through the sky, on both sides. Ruau threw himself forward with at least as much force. For a moment it seemed the Gargantuan would be smart enough to grab on to the horns, but then the hornbeast had toppled him over and the crown of spikes on Sayron's mace squarely rammed the front of his helmet. A crack, a fountain of blood, and the enormous muscles fell silent. Sayron panted and turned Ruau around. "The next one's yours," he uttered. Ruau snorted briefly. 

The remaining Gargantuans stomped on the ground. One of them was shot full of arrows on the backside – arrows tipped with colourful feathers, probably from the elves, or Minc and his small cohort of archers. They didn't seem to be slowing the creature down.

Two at once. Would he be able to deal with this? Sayron narrowed his eyes… 

…and then widened them, as a thick, dark vine wrapped itself around the necks of his two adversaries. With a fleshy sound razor-sharp thorns burst from the vine, and more blood sprayed across the battlefield. The two Gargantuans collapsed and revealed what was behind them. 

Queen Fay lowered her hand and raised her head with a smile. "My pleasure, love." 

Sayron opened and closed his mouth for a moment, then grinned. "My one true First Mistress." 

"I don't ask for more," the queen laughed with an elegant reverence. Then she whirled off into the fray, throwing out her darkened magic to all sides. 

Sayron raised his bloodied hands and called up another catapult. The battlefield was being transformed into glorious chaos.

**(BATTLEFIELD)**

Chaos was all Jinx could see. 

To her, it seemed she was alone amidst a sea of soldiers, cut off from the rest of the horde. Time and time again she fell out, spraying magic into faces until the skin fell from their bones, striking with her sword until her muscles screamed in protest, and then eventually with her ropes, though she couldn't use those half as effectively as normal from wolfback. 

Then a pitiful yelp rang out, and the legs of her rough grey mount gave out. 

Jinx looked down. A low-cast spear had buried itself into the wolf's chest. The animal collapsed, and as she looked on two arrows pierced his flanks. She rolled away and barely dodged a third. 

No mount anymore. 

For a moment she mourned her wolf – he'd served her well during the entire march – but then she growled savagely and swept around her ropes. This way she could clear an arena around herself way faster, the way she was used to. 

Around her ballista arrows and catapult boulders whirred through the air. The dark, veil-like clouds obscured the sun and cast the battlefield in a strange gloom. In some places piles of bodies had formed, both human and Minion. 

A Gargantuan stormed straight through the free arena Jinx had created, and she could barely dodge him by jumping up – but the creature slowed down and struck at her. Jinx answered by hooking on to his armour and kept holding on as the creature furiously swatted at her – and flung away his own troops again and again. The horde leader held on tightly to his helmet and shoulder pieces, as he crushed the bodies of her wolf and the soldiers beneath his gigantic feet. For a while she maintained this, then she tore off the helmet, cast a glance into a misshapen face with a huge nose and ears and small, beady eyes, and then blew off the entire head. The body collapsed into the churned, dry grass, and Jinx rolled away from the spears and swords immediately coming down to meet her. 

Somewhere close by an exploding catapult boulder shook the entire field.

**(BATTLEFIELD)**

An explosion had him diving away for cover. 

Not in a very smart direction, it turned out. As Seffec wiped the soot off his face and opened his eyes he looked up at a couple of figures awfully familiar to him. A neatly ordered group of men, with black tunics and plumed helmets. 

Arena guards. Normally he saw those standing at the edges of the Arena, blocking his way back to the dungeons and keeping him from attacking the audience. Now… 

The Ruborian leader drew his scimitar. Behind him his own men recovered from the blow.  
>Ruborians were strong, stronger than they'd let show in the Arena. Seffec narrowed his eyes. Then the two groups stormed at each other, as new explosions shook the ground. <p>

The first guards fell out with their long swords, with swift, trained movements. Seffec shielded himself with his own sword and tried to push his opponent's arm away, but they were matched. Then the Ruborian briefly drew back and kicked the guard in the chest, so he fell back into the group. A second later an arrow ricocheted off his helmet – Seffec glanced back and caught a glimpse of Masud – and the next planted itself in an eye. The man roared and clawed at his head, but a few seconds later he was dead, save for a few last twitches.  
>Seffec barely had time to breathe before a new Arena guard charged at him, his weapon held low. The boy couldn't prevent it pulling a long wound across his arm, but he paid the man back with a deep gash to the shoulder. The guard didn't even blink, and immediately fell out again. Seffec dodged him by shooting to the right, and rammed his knee into the man's armoured stomach with a cracking sound. The scimitar flashed over his back and then hacked deeply into the back of his neck. A new crack, of bone this time, and the guard fell down convulsing. <p>

Immediately Seffec turned to the rest of the garrison, with flashing blue eyes and an even brighter flashing sword.

A strange glow radiated upwards from behind the hilltops, further north, outside of the siege. 

Here, too, the gnash and creak of bones resounded. Something was going horribly wrong here. 

Fever, Goudvis and Stabbit – back in one body – still stood hunched over in a triangle, but now something started to happen. The skin on their backs was still moving, increasingly wild and jolting. 

At the same time their faces changed, lengthening forwards until it was no longer normal for a Minion, but resembled a snout. From their brow ridges increasingly long horns appeared, almost straight and ridgy. Their muscles thickened, their legs grew longer, their claws sharper. All this time their eyes remained closed, and it was clear the changes caused them immense pain. 

Then something burst through the skin on their backs, in an eruption of slime and blood. Screams and horrible hissing resounded from behind the ridge.

Explosions and rains of sparks descended upon the Netherworld's side of the battlefield. Every time such a catapult boulder impacted, a considerable part of the hordes and armies was wiped out, and some of those Minions didn't die for the first time. The catapults were a problem Sayron and Gnarl racked their brains over for the moment. None of the Netherworldly warriors could reach the city walls to dispatch the siege weapons, and their own catapults were too far away to do any damage. 

There was a small figure causing explosions in the Imperial legions too, however. 

The Empire had brought bomb throwers to the battle, men in blue tunics with dozens of spherical explosives strapped to their bodies. Many of them now lay dead in the dust, as they weren't exactly invincible. 

A few Minions had taken off their bombs and used them for themselves. But not one of them was as enthusiastic as Nitro. 

The red Minion was very young, but he'd had a love for explosions from the very beginning, and now he was as happy as could be. Everywhere he went he caused a chain of blooming fires and deafening bangs, and bodies and parts of them flew around behind him. Every now and then he went on apart from his salamander, jumping and climbing over Gargantuans and Eradicators, sometimes leaving bombs in their armour so they burst apart behind him in a clash of flying copper. 

Then something huge sailed over his head, something letting through the remaining sunlight in a rain of ruby-red rays. A mighty beating of wings resounded, and Nitro was forced to shield his eyes as a sea of fire suddenly bloomed in front of him, in a long arch ending in a giant mushrooming explosion. The men caught in it screamed and shrieked, with much higher-pitched voices than he'd expected. 

The red slowly lowered his claw, his forgotten bomb still clenched tightly. His eyes widened. 

Amidst the rising cinders, lifted on his own thermal, soared an enormous, gruesome creature. A scaly, scarlet red skin, ivory claws on hands and feet, a glowing chest, horns – not curved like a red's, but almost straight. And, yes, wings... wings with half-transparent, bloody red membranes between the outstretched wing fingers. 

As the red Minion looked on two more flying forms joined the first above the fire. The left one was green and spotted, and his teeth were bared in a hissing grin. The one on the right was blue, and a white mist was descending from his body. Nitro realized the creature's skin was so cold an icy air flow was streaming off him, even in the heat of the inferno. 

The red flying creature beat his wings and almost shot over his head again. As he came closer Nitro suddenly saw the fierce eyes were black-lined, dark lines continuing to the sides of the horned head. The same went for the green and blue creatures. 

Then the three parted ways in gusts of fire, green smoke and icy mist.

The fiery creature savagely flapped his new wings and tried to gain some control over his course. It was hard flying when a ceaseless, blazingly hot thermal rushed beneath one's wings. 

The creature that'd once been Fever, but could now barely remember his name because of the flood of new power coursing through his body, widely opened his maw and filled the air above the battlefield with fire. Then he soared down and pulled a swathe of destruction through the Imperial troops. Wherever he went flames ignited, and men screamed as Sayron would never, in all of his days, be able to make them scream. He cut through the armies like a scythe and decimated entire legions, until there was nothing left but flying cinders and glowing ashes. 

The Imperial armies were far larger than Sayron's ragtag mess, he could clearly see that now he had a proper vantage point. Luckily Sayron had some forces on his side Solarius _couldn't_ have anticipated. 

A whistle reached his pointed ears. Fever wildly flapped his wings and turned in the air, just in time to see a huge boulder coming his way, fired with startling precision from one of the catapults on the city wall. 

The winged Minion grinned briefly and pulled back his arm. As the rock reached him he beat it back with a deafening blow, and on this flight the rock pulled a flaming trail through the sky. As it came down amidst the Imperial troops it burst apart in an explosion of thick, liquid lava. 

Fever turned his wings and soared back to Sayron's side of the battlefield, to tap some catapult boulders from that side in their flight as he went. They hissed and cracked as in answer, as if to let him know their hearts had been rendered liquid by his touch. Now they could do quite a bit more damage than simple crushing. 

He rose up on the heat of his own flames and cast a glance east. There his brother was hard at work as well.

Thick clouds of green gas streamed from between the long, sharp teeth of the green flyer and spread across the battlefield, whirling in the air flows of his wingbeat. 

Stabbit was still laughing incessantly, but he was no longer the only one. Wherever the gas reached the Empire's troops the men dropped their weapons and burst out roaring with insane laughter. Where the gas lingered, they often fell down altogether, their lungs clogged with the winged green Minion's poison. 

_Now_ Stabbit was finally satisfied. This was fun, even more so than being in two heads at once. He swiped out his claws and whirled down, to cut off raised spears and heads as if he was mowing grass. Behind him the laughter rose up anew. 

Where he went his poison also afflicted the Minions, but they seemed to suffer much less. Some were caught in fits of laughter, others in coughing, but none of them died of it – also because the greens, immune as always, often dragged the others away. 

But Stabbit still wasn't entirely right in the head, and it seemed he made little distinction between the Netherworld's side and that of the Empire. At one moment he sliced straight through the Netherworld's army and started cutting off the highest parts there too – the peoples' heads. For the blink of an eye his nails pulled deep scratches through the armour plates of Omari's sand worm as it abruptly erupted from the soil. And then something else was hanging from his razor-sharp claws. 

The insane flyer looked to the side. There, wrestling in his elongated fingers, hung a brown Minion with a black bandana over his ears. From far away the caw of a large tropical bird resounded, but Stabbit was flying way too fast for Duda to catch up. 

Scabies dug his own claws into Stabbit's wrist in a desperate attempt to cling on. At that the flyer flung back his hand, but the only result was that the brown Minion landed on Stabbit's back, between the wings, his arms around the muscular, spotted neck in a cramped embrace. 

Then the long, frayed ears were suddenly in a vice grip, and Scabies yanked them hard.

"Flying too low, scumbag!" 

Stabbit yelped with surprise and wildly flapped his wings, resulting in the duo rising up above the battlefield uncontrolled, barely dodging an exploding catapult boulder. They tumbled back towards the city walls, incessantly spewing green gas.

**General Herbison is standing on a raised platform with archers: Fire!**

**A hailstorm of arrows rain down on Imperial troops.**

**General: Maintain suppression fire and prepare to roll out the catapult on the enemy reinforcements. I'm not going to be the one who tells the Overlord, or Jinx, we screwed up.**

**An arrow whistles through the air and just misses his head.**

**General: Ha! Is that the best you can do? You've got no aim at all!**

**This time an arrow knocks his hat off.**

**The General dives for his hat: Hat down! I repeat, we've got a hat down!**

**Jinx races past: Would you focus already?**

**General salutes: Yes ma'am. Sorry ma'am. Please review readers, pledge your support to the Overlord! Or to Jinx if you think she looks nice as she disembowels enemy soldiers… which I do. Till next time.**


	36. Battle of the Northern Fields Part 2

**General Herbison puts his hat back on: There we go. Okay so we left you in the middle of a battle. Yeah it was too long for one chapter and let's be honest it's more exciting that way.**

**Fay: You humans talk too much.**

**General: And you left me to continue hanging from that banister.**

**Fay: Are you still upset over that, human?**

**General: I am miffed about it, yes. Anyway disclaimer time, every aspect, except the pieces in bold, belong to Sunjinjo on deviantart who is the true Minion Mistress. Check out her fantastic art pieces. Now then, let battle resume!**

**Fay: I will kill you one day when you are no longer needed.**

**General: Just try it you fairy scum. On with the story.**

**Battle of the Northern Fields Part 2**

The Netherworld's army was moving forward at a faster pace with these unexpected new allies in the air. The front lines approached a new hill, good and high, and very suitable for a third catapult. 

It was a pity the hill was already occupied – by a huge ballista. 

This was a job for a marksman. At least, that was Minc's humble opinion. 

The brown with the elven bow hung a small distance away, halfway up the second catapult. He ignored the whizz of the sling and the jolting of the siege weapon every time a boulder was fired – his concentration had grown famous among the quickly distracted brown clan by now. He kept his eyes and his arrows sharply on the ballista, from his questionable vantage point. 

He fired. One of the men on the ballista, one helping to aim, fell down gurgling inaudibly. The ballista itself swung to the side and the meter-long arrow now being fired squarely missed its target. A few Ruborians looked back and saluted gratefully. Minc didn't react, but strung a new arrow and shot another crew member. 

The Minion grinned and jumped off the catapult. A whistling boulder whirred over his head to the city walls as he ran to the ballista as a black and brown flash, stringing and firing three arrows in rapid succession. One of them missed its target and buried itself in the wood of the ballista, but the other two struck the remaining men on the siege weapon – one in the shoulder, so he grabbed at his wound screaming, the other in an eye. That soldier was dead immediately. 

Two more men on the ballista, one of them injured. Piece of cake. 

Then, as Minc was still sprinting to the hill, a huge shape tumbled from the sky and turned a whole swathe of the field ahead into a sea of green gas. The brown Minion slowed down – he didn't like the effects that much. Before he'd completely stopped, however, a fireball sailed down – a glance upwards revealed a glimpse of Fever through the billowing clouds of smoke – and the gas caught fire. 

Minc shielded his eyes. The fire was almost unbelievably ferocious, bright and all-consuming hot. The battlefield before him turned into a chaos of screams and fleeing pinpricks of light that'd once been the warriors. But it also burned itself out faster than a normal fire, and it didn't take long before there was nothing left but flying sparks and hot ash. 

He stared up for a moment, but the two flyers were gone. He ran on over the cleared path, quickly followed by some other Minions. Kniff was among them, the white of his silken hat flecked with red. 

The two remaining soldiers on the ballista were quickly overpowered, the bodies were thrown downhill, and Minc and the others took their positions. A few Nordbergians combined their strengths to push the war machine a bit downhill and secure it against a protruding rock, so they could fire at will, but a catapult could be brought up on the hilltop as well. 

Minc cast a glance at the meter-long, deadly arrows he now had at his disposal, and grinned darkly.

**(BATTLEFIELD)**

Sayron had no idea what had happened in the skies above his war, but he didn't complain. He would like some answers, however. 

He'd never understood much of the three Minions with the black-lined eyes. He'd barely noticed their strange behaviour until Jinx had pointed it out, in fact, but she hadn't had an explanation either, and he'd dismissed the matter for the time being. 

But he couldn't ignore it any longer now. He'd asked Gnarl what he knew, but the advisor hadn't been able to give a coherent answer. 

"_Don't you worry, Lord Sayron."_

The Overlord froze. An icy voice had hissed through his head, slipping between his own thoughts like meltwater.

High above the battle, needle-sharp teeth were bared in a grin. 

"Don't you worry, Lord Sayron," Goudvis spoke, devilish glee in his voice. "Everything will become clear soon." He felt the Overlord's confusion, and he almost rubbed his hands together with satisfaction. Spreading confusion was more of a job for his green-skinned brother, really, but he could have a lot of fun with it as well. 

The thing he had at least as much fun with was the confusion of the young horde leader. She'd gotten on the right track – she'd come very close indeed. She'd even gotten a Minion to share the dark vision with her. Beating his vapour-emitting, icy blue wings Goudvis shook his head at that once more. Loyalty. It was a new approach, but it seemed to be working. 

Three heads, three Overlords, three Tower Hearts, three strange Minions with black-lined eyes. 

She'd gotten very close, but they would both come even closer… very soon. 

With a grin the blue flyer dived down. A white, freezing fire gleamed in his hands, and a moment later two enormous chunks of ice sailed down, to shatter on the battlefield in a deadly shower of shards and spears of ice. Goudvis flew back up spinning as the screams reached his ears. Then he snapped his fingers, and the screaming stopped. 

_You stand still,_ he commanded. _Brothers!_

As if they were actually listening, Fever and Stabbit sailed down from the smoke, fire and poison in their elongated maws. Time and time again they pulled swathes of destruction and madness through the Imperial army, and the men did nothing to prevent it – the ballistae didn't fire, the men didn't flee. No one in Goudvis' range of domination could lift a finger against the icy flyer's will.

On the city wall the men started to panic slightly. 

Still new cohorts were streaming from the city to the northern fields, let down by ropes and ladders. The Netherworld's legions hadn't even come close to the walls yet. But no one had expected the three flying demons, and the damage they were dealing was almost impossible to compensate any longer. Fabius Amicus was still alive, but now he almost wished he wasn't – the conflagrations the red demon left behind, every time he swooped down and traced low arches above the armies, were almost too much for him. 

He looked up to the nearest catapult. "Centurion! What do we do?!" 

On the central platform of the huge siege weapon the men in the red cloak growled.

"Replace those explosives," he snarled at his crew. "The fire only gives that red one new strength. Get normal boulders!" 

"Yes, sir," one of them saluted, and a whole bunch of them hurried off. Not much later the required munition was hoisted up along the wall and loaded into the catapults – not all of them, as there was still hope the explosives could bring down the green and blue flyers. 

The red flyer soared to the wall, closer and closer until his wings almost stroked along the white marble. Flames leaked between his teeth as he grinned – 

"Fire," the centurion commanded. 

Half a dozen crushing boulders screamed through the air, all aimed for the fire-breathing monster.

Far away beyond the hills the Tower Heart briefly flickered.

The catapult boulders hit one by one, each with crushing force. Fever staggered in the air as his wings were struck and the strong bones supporting the membrane creaked beneath the strain. Then something snapped, again and again. Flames escaped his maw as his ribs were struck. 

Then a rock crashed into his head and the fire in his eyes faded, and the red flyer fell down to the battlefield tumbling and spinning, to smack down before the city gates with a blow flinging away dust and soldiers to all sides.

"No!" 

On higher ground, busy defending the ballista Minc and the others had hijacked with sword and magic, Jinx clasped her free hand to her mouth. To see Fever tumble from the skies was a horrible sight, even from this distance. 

For a moment she'd been certain of the connection between Kniff's vision of a dark, three-headed god and the three Minions. She'd even called them the Unholy Minions for herself. But now… 

No one could survive such a bombardment. No winged creature. 

Zephyros would have been long dead, with broken bones protruding through his skin on all sides. 

The horde leader abruptly cowered down as another flying form barely grazed the hill ridge, hissing and spitting with fury. She could just make out a smaller figure on his back, with a black bandana.

The enormous creature lay squarely between the soldiers with spread, clearly broken wings.

A few hundred feet further the city wall rose up. 

The Empire's men nervously crowded around the huge, muscular body. Some of them were brave enough to prod it with a long sword or a spear. Glowing, steaming blood flowed from every wound, and the air above the body trembled with heat. 

The creature was still breathing, but barely noticeable. 

Then a second winged demon sailed towards the city wall. This one left behind a trail of green, poisonous clouds, and the men around Fever's body covered their noses and mouths. The demon turned around hissing, the look in his eyes just as enraged as in those of his rider – a smaller, brown demon. For a moment he seemed to be about to fall out to the ground, maybe even to lift the fiery flyer, but then he turned back to the city wall. It seemed his rider had persuaded him, steering by pulling on his frayed ears. 

A command resounded from the wall. "Catapults!" 

Briefly there was the sound of slings being pulled back. Then the centurion's voice rang out once more. "Sentinels!" 

All Sentinels on the wall pulled their red lights off the battlefield and outstretched their left hands to Stabbit. 

The green flyer hissed, not with rage this time, but in pain. Scabies dived away behind the elongated head and the muscular neck, but Stabbit couldn't go anywhere. For a moment he shone with his own green light, and for a moment it seemed to win against the red Sentinel lights, but then his skin started to scorch and shrivel away. The mighty green wings missed a beat, and Stabbit and Scabies dropped in the air – they lost so much height Stabbit's foot claws almost touched the heads of the soldiers on the field. 

"Fire!" 

"Get catapults!" Scabies yelled in Stabbit's ear, but the green flyer writhed and flapped uncontrolled in the red light. He abruptly shot up, like a cork from a bottle, out of reach of the Sentinels. The exploding catapult boulders missed him utterly and came down further away, in the Netherworld's army. A few of them struck one of Sayron's catapults, erected with such pain and effort. The wooden construction burst apart in a blaze of flaming beams and chunks of debris. Another boulder barely missed Goudvis – the blue flyer could almost touch the projectile and would surely have been hit it he hadn't been paying attention to the wall. 

Briefly something else than satisfaction appeared in Goudvis' eyes. This wasn't going according to plan at all.

**(BATTLEFIELD)**

Those catapults were becoming a big problem. 

Jinx realized this all too well, still busy on the hill bearing the third catapult and Minc's ballista. She'd followed Stabbit's struggle with wide eyes, and yelled and sighed with the Minions as he was beaten back by the Sentinels. Now the horde leader was torn apart by an inner conflict. 

The catapults couldn't be brought down from the battlefield. The Netherworld's army couldn't come close enough to the city wall to erect their own catapult, not without being completely wiped out, and even if they could get a catapult out there it would be blown apart in seconds – being close enough to the wall to damage the Imperial catapults also meant coming within shooting range yourself. A sitting duck. 

The flyers couldn't do anything, that was clear. The Sentinels protected the siege weapons well. The Unholy Minions' magic wasn't strong enough to withstand their light. 

What was needed here was something that didn't fight from ground level, and wasn't magical. Otherwise they'd never take the city walls. 

Jinx exchanged a brief glance with Kniff, still busy aiming Minc's ballista and loading in new arrows. His yellow eyes flashed beneath his blood-stained hat, and his mouth twisted in a grimace. He was thinking the same thing. 

She tightly closed her eyes. Then she opened them again, turned and sprinted back through the Netherworld's army, to the north, to the Tower Gate. 

On and around the ballista a few Minions turned with her. "Jinx! Where you going?!" 

"Keep that ballista going! I'll come back!" Jinx shouted. "I'll come back," she repeated to herself, in a fierce growl. 

**(OVER TO SAYRON)**

_"Sire?"_

Sayron beat back a spherical bomb with the back of his hand, an explosive thrown by a soldier in a blue tunic. The projectile exploded amidst the enemy troops, and he permitted himself a brief grin, despite the growing trouble on his side. "Gnarl?" 

The advisor coughed and raised his voice to overrule the noise around the Overlord._ "Sire, the Purple Scourge has left the battlefield."_

"How do you know..." Sayron fell silent for a moment. "Has she been in the Netherworld?!" 

_"Yes, my Lord. I'm afraid I wasn't able to stop her."_ Gnarl's voice sounded flat, and the Overlord realized the advisor was still quite shocked – he could imagine how Jinx had flashed through the throne room, too quick for the old Minion to so much as lift a finger. 

"Where is she now?" he asked feverishly, as bewilderment and frustration fought for priority. He couldn't use this – the situation was bad enough with the horde leader with them. 

_"She immediately flashed away for Everlight, Lord."_ Gnarl sounded a bit lost. 

Everlight… 

As the Overlord swung around his mace, trying almost desperately to protect himself, Ruau and the men around him against the arrows and explosions the Empire flung at them, Jinx's little expeditions shot through his mind. Jinx' unexplained trips to the tropical island, her nervous reactions whenever he asked about them… 

He cursed himself. He'd been blind. His horde leader had been hiding something from him… somewhere on Everlight. 

Sayron abruptly looked up at the darkened sky as a whistling sound caught his attention. A flaming catapult boulder flew straight at him… 

"Ruau!" he shouted, and his mount immediately put himself in motion, almost diving away, away from the spot where the projectile would land… 

Behind him everything bloomed with heat and light. He didn't look back, not even when his silken sash partly scorched away. 

He let Ruau ram a way through the battle, without much distinction between friend and foe. Broken bodies of the fallen cracked beneath the hornbeast's hooves, and as he looked down he realized an incredible amount of Minions, Nordbergians and Ruborians lay dead in the dust. With some Minions, he noticed, limbs had been cut off, up to both arms and legs, and he realized the soldiers had inflicted those mutilations before their deaths – those Minions were no longer useful, he couldn't summon them back from the Well. 

How had they known that? Now the Empire had figured this out, things were looking grim for them. 

A little distance away he could hear Kivner screaming his commands, however. They still had leadership, apart from himself. He hoped Fay was alright, but he doubted the Empire could handle her. 

Ahead of him the yeti flung his long arms around, crushing and smacking away soldiers, Eradicators and even a Gargantuan to the left and right. A savage roar streamed from his sharp-fanged mouth. Then a massive, heavy catapult boulder flung him away in turn. The rock's impact actually had the enormous yeti flying upwards, and long before the dust settled the Nordbergian beast smacked down before Sayron, his arms outstretched towards Ruau's hooves. The one eye looked up at the Overlord hazily, and the animal groaned. 

Blues came running to heal the many wounds and probably broken ribs of the beast, but it clearly demanded much of the vulnerable Minions to keep standing amidst the chaos. The Empire started to force themselves into the Netherworld's army, instead of the other way around. 

This wasn't good at all. 

And it all hinged on those catapults on the city wall. If only they could bring those down they could march forward, climb the wall and kill the Sentinels, the explosions would stop and all those Minions would stay alive… then the three flyers would have a free hand again. 

Sayron threw himself into battle again and wildly smacked around, but the muscles in his arms screamed with protest beneath his weapon's enormous weight. He saw Fay, far ahead, still viciously falling out with thorny vines and other green magic. Her black dress was full of tears and bright red blood dripped down over her pale face from a head wound. Her red hair had come loose and whirled wildly around her head. Every now and then she cast seeds around, growing into thorny bushes or stinging nettles between the soldiers, but those often shrivelled in the heat of a nearby explosion. 

If only they could bring down the catapults… 

Then Gnarl's voice resounded again. 

"_What?!_" 

The advisor's creaky old voice betrayed actual fear, and that was the only reason Sayron heard it through his rage. Gnarl was never afraid. That was impossible. 

_"Get that creature away! Jinx…!"  
><em> 

"_Arcadiopolis!_" 

One word, with Jinx' clear voice. 

Sayron spun around, to stare up at the hilltops behind which the Tower Gate lay. A blue flash ascended from behind the ridge. 

And then something else followed, almost faster than his eyes could follow, shooting straight up at the clouded sky with a high-pitched screech.

**(OVER TO JINX)**

Finally. 

Finally dark wings cut through the air above Arcadiopolis. 

She'd dreamt of it, but she'd never thought it'd become reality one day. That she'd ever see the armies of the Empire and the Netherworld far below her, small as toys. Low, dark clouds flashed between her and the armies like veils as she shot over the battlefield, swift and fleet as if she was still dreaming. 

Zephyros carried her over the fields with fantastic speed, regularly beating his wings and emitting high cries of excitement. 

Jinx feverishly grabbed on to his mane, as her heart almost burst from her chest with joy, fear and guilt. "It's the only way!" she shouted down against the wind, as if someone could hear her. "I didn't want to take him here! I couldn't –" 

Then an ominous whistling sound cut her off, and she looked ahead, squinting her eyes against the wind's furious power. 

They'd started firing at her. 

"Not my bat," she hissed. She outstretched a hand, leaning on Zephyros' head with the other for some support. The purple comet ignited between her fingers, licking the air as if it couldn't wait to be unleashed. 

Then the purple fire flashed ahead and hit the catapult boulder. A moment later the giant bat was flying through a cloud of dust and rock chippings. This repeated itself time and time again, every projectile crumbling or exploding halfway through their flight. The manoeuvres she'd taught Zephyros came in handy as well – their flight across the fields turned into a whirl of dives, banks and rolls to avoid the arrows and boulders now flying towards them.

Jinx held on tightly to the gear, a grim smile plastered across her face. They could do this. This was what they'd trained for all this time. 

Jinx realized Zephyros was actually larger than the Unholy Minions. Goudvis was flying towards them from the west, as white mist whirled off his wings. His still large, round eyes stared at her, glistening with a strange kind of approval. 

_A non-magical flyer,_ his voice hissed inside her head. _Clever girl._ Even from this distance Jinx could see him grinning. 

She saluted uncertainly, then grabbed the crossbow, in the holder at the right side of the saddle. She clenched her teeth, ensured herself a brief respite with a crackling blow of magic, and loaded in the arrows. 

Then they reached the city wall, and Zephyros swept forward his foot claws – the claws that could cut through leather and metal, the claws that could gut a grown man like a fish. 

This impact was even more violent than on wolfback. The giant bat came down on the first catapult like an avalanche, flinging away the soldiers with teeth and claws. The blows of his wings dragged the first Sentinels off the wall, even before they could aim their lights. Jinx dived away behind her mount's head and large ears as the others did seize their chances – with this many Sentinels at once, her magic would probably be dragged out of her altogether. 

She leant back and fired bolt after bolt down along the wall with her crossbow, to the spot where Fever still lay unconscious. Soldiers had climbed on top of him, stabbing his chest to shrink down his chances of coming back around. The horde leader missed multiple times because of the violent movements of her mount, but she did manage to create panic around the red flyer. Hopefully she'd granted Fever some rest – she fiercely hoped he had the same healing talent as Stabbit. 

Then she was forced to focus on the wall. The catapults further away turned to aim for Zephyros, and she knew she couldn't afford a single hit. 

There were too many for her to beat back, she realized. "Zeph, fly!" 

One fling of his maw later, sending two soldiers tumbling down to the battlefield, the bat spread his wings and dived off the wall. What followed demanded the utmost of their flying skills. Jinx tried her best to send him between the catapults and ballistae on the wall in a slalom, so he could beat down the soldiers and Sentinels standing between them. At the same time she tried to shoot the men on the catapults herself. 

Things didn't entirely work out the way she wanted, but all in all they greatly countered the firing of the siege weapons, and that was enough for Jinx – she'd clenched her teeth with strain and concentration, but as she went along a wild grin also formed on her face. 

She was forced to take to the crossbow entirely, instead of magic, as Zephyros' lurching course plunged them into the anti-magic shield above the city every few seconds. Every time Jinx felt her magic fade away, and it wasn't a pleasant sensation at all. She realized, again, they really had to dispatch the shield before they could take the city. She didn't doubt the fact they'd need the Minions' magical qualities – not to mention Sayron and herself, and she also wondered if Omari's sand worm would listen to him without the Ruborian's magic.

She had noticed the mage hadn't dared sending his monster beneath the wall, probably for that reason. The Unholy Minions didn't have any influence with the shield intact, either. 

The horde leader leant into each of Zephyros' turns, gradually running out of arrows and adding purple fireballs whenever the shield allowed her to. Here and there the bat soared over the catapults with his claws held high, dragging out the men on them, clawing and biting down wherever he could. Every now and then his gaze flashed back to his rider, as if to ensure himself she hadn't been hit by the Sentinels' lights, arrows or projectiles.

Sometimes she was, but she could shake off the lights of individual Sentinels, and she'd broken off arrows to leave them inside the wound until she could heal it more often than she cared to remember. 

Then, sooner than expected, they reached the end of the line of catapults and ballistae. Zephyros turned around flapping, and Jinx looked out over the havoc they'd wreaked. 

Not a single catapult had a full crew left. Some of them could still fire, but Stabbit and Goudvis were approaching fast as well, and now not half as many explosions rained down in Sayron's armies their front line was advancing quite a bit faster too. Jinx shot her last crossbow bolts at the Sentinels still standing as Zephyros carried her across the wall in a much calmer pace. Then the bat landed, squarely on the city wall, with a view across the entire battlefield. He fell out to a fleeing soldier one more time, and blood dripped over his snout as Jinx put away her crossbow and straightened out. 

A dull, bellowing sound reached her ears as Zephyros folded his rushing wings. A familiar tone… 

Her name. 

Jinx gasped for breath and clasped a blood-flecked hand to her mouth as she realized it. The troops of the Netherworld were chanting her name. 

"_Jinx…! Jinx…! Jinx…!_" 

For a moment the battlefield spun around her and she tightly shut her eyes. She could see the look in Sayron's eyes already. This time she'd really gone too far. 

But she hadn't had a choice. She took a deep breath as she realized she'd singlehandedly turned the tide of battle. 

_For Nordberg, Ruboria and Everlight. For blood and death. For magic!_

"No," she spoke quietly to herself. She pulled her sword from its sheath and raised the weapon up high. "_For the Netherworld!_" she cried out over the battlefield. Beneath her Zephyros reared up and screeched with her. 

When he eventually shut his maw Jinx briefly laid a hand on his rough head. "One more thing left," she grinned. "Brace yourself!" 

They dived off the wall and soared down to where Fever lay, now amidst panicked soldiers who'd long since broken formation. The bat outstretched his claws to the red flyer and dragged him away from the ground, to ascend again with furiously pounding wings. Fever was heavy, and his drooping wings caught so much air Zephyros was considerably slowed, but that didn't matter any longer. Jinx managed to get her mount back behind the lines and lowered Fever in a group of blues. The Minions immediately swarmed around the flyer, the healing magic sizzling at their fingertips. 

She looked down upon one of them with a smile, as fires flared behind her and battle cries resounded across the fields. "I promised you something, Drip." 

The blue Minion pulled back his hands from Fever's arm. His large round eyes widened further as he looked at her. "If you're in the position to take me with you…" 

"Today," Jinx chuckled. She reached forward and pulled a red-feathered arrow from the edge of Zephyros' wing. More of those had struck the bat on the way. "I'm going to need a healer if I want to survive above this battlefield." 

"My pleasure," the blue Minion answered with a grin. He reached up and seized her outstretched hand, to be dragged behind her in the saddle. Then they shot up again, to join the Unholy Minions and decide the battle.

**(NETHERWORLD/THRONE ROOM)**

"Jinx, the Mistress of the sky  
>Spears will break and shields be shaken<br>On Everlight's wings she'll surely fly  
>To victory, your lands be taken!" <p>

At the mist pool Gnarl abruptly turned around. Behind him danced a brown Minion with a fool's hat, plucking his harp every now and then.

Quaver spun on his heel and then looked back into the mist pool with one yellow and one glass eye. "Did you see this one coming, Gnarl? Haha!" 

"Shut it, Quaver," the advisor hissed.

**(SURFACE/BATTLEFIELD)**

As Fever's inner fire flared up once again and he launched himself into the sky, Sayron could barely keep himself standing in battle any longer. He was too busy staring at the silhouette of the enormous bat as it turned and tumbled high above him, and time and time again purple magic rained down from its back. The Overlord noticed his own mount became nervous with that giant shadow, and he felt a mixture of anger and hurt well up – he couldn't believe the way Jinx had betrayed his trust. 

She'd lied to him since their journey across Everlight. To him, her superior... her Master. Being a part of the horde meant obedience... 

But Sayron realized he'd have far more trouble without her, and he wasn't ungrateful now he could send Ruau thundering through the scattered legions of the Empire without much ado. Behind him two more catapults were brought up and made ready, and as Fever swept through the air and touched the Netherworldly boulders, flaming explosions mushroomed up where he liked them best... just in front of the city walls. 

Everywhere the Imperial armies broke formation. Their morale had been crushed. They hadn't succeeded in downing the winged Minions, and instead, an extra pair of wings had joined them. That was too much for them. 

A catapult was brought up ahead of him, close enough to the city walls to blast a hole in them the Empire wouldn't be able to mend anytime soon... 

He spurred on Ruau. 

As he came close enough the Minions on the catapult turned to him. In the background Jinx sailed through the air, patrolling the walls so no new Sentinels or other reinforcements could get a foothold. 

Yellow eyes flashed beneath varying helmets, hats and a hollowed pumpkin. "Master?" 

Sayron grinned. "Go ahead." 

The sling was pulled back, with an ominous creak. Up in the air Fever was circling like a vulture, more than ready to add his fire to the projectiles. 

Sayron raised his head. "Gnarl, bring the Tower Heart to me." 

_"Certainly, Sire."_

As flaming projectiles rained down upon the city wall and huge dark cracks flew up in the pristine marble, a flaming red pearl moved through the armies of the Netherworld. On the Imperial half of the battlefield fights were still going on, between humans and Minions, Gargantuans and Eradicators, but those fights were about to come to an end. 

The Tower Heart had glowed brighter and brighter during the battle. As Fever had crashed down it'd faded for a while, to the great panic of the Minions tending to it, but now everything seemed to be returned to normal. Now it glowed as bright as the red flyer's eyes. 

The ancient relic reached Sayron, proudly upright on his mount next to the catapult closest to the city walls. The Overlord cast a glance down and grinned, his eyes fierce. Nothing could stand up to him now. At this moment he was invincible. And he was about to grow more powerful still, however briefly. 

He knew exactly what he had to do. 

The Overlord dismounted, knelt down at the Heart, outstretched his armoured hands and pierced his sharp metal fingertips through the outside of the pearl. His hands slid through the radiant orb as if it was made of mist, and for a single moment Sayron's entire body glowed with blinding light. The Minions around him shielded their eyes, and high up in the air Jinx inhaled sharply – it was as if a sun shone up at her from the battlefield. 

Then the Overlord pulled back his hands, but they were clenched into fists now. He was holding something, something glowing just as bright as he had a moment ago. It was pure lightning – his own magic, but unimaginably magnified. 

As he pulled the magic out, the Tower Heart lost a considerable portion of its glow. This was the reason Sayron hadn't done this at the start of the siege – the Heart could no longer lend its powers to the Tower Gates now. He wouldn't be able to call up any catapults soon. And the power he was about to unleash, too, was a one-time only use. 

But unleash it, he would. 

Sayron stood up, rolled his shoulders, and then flung the lightning bolt up into the sky.

Briefly the dark clouds lit up as the bolt danced between them, the roaring thunder in pursuit... 

Then lightning struck the city. 

It was an enormous pillar of light crashing down on Arcadiopolis from the skies, hellishly illuminating the wide surroundings. In some places in the city fires broke out, and the people that hadn't noticed much of his presence up to this point now ran out of their homes, screaming in panic. New alarm bells rang out, and on the battlefield the Overlord grinned a dark grin... but the best was still to come. 

All this time his catapults had continued firing, and now the thick, strong city wall finally started to crumble down. Together with that weakening barrier the shield above the city flickered. The blue haze grew fainter, faltered... and then fell away in indistinct bolts and flashes of anti-magic, shooting away across the fields. For just one moment a wave of anti-magic rolled over the battlefield, and everywhere green Minions became visible and the healing magic of the blues faltered. For one moment the reds couldn't throw fireballs any longer, for one moment Fay lost her grip on her verdant creations. 

Then it was over, and Arcadiopolis lay completely bare beneath the naked sky. 

The city wall broke open in three places. A cloud of dust rose up, and the last soldiers still resisting made a run for it. One of the last Gargantuans was brought down roaring beneath the claws of five greens and their spiders. 

Sayron kept standing there, slowly opening and closing his crackling hand. He didn't react as a rushing sound reached him, from a small distance behind his back. He only looked up as Ruau started snorting and pawing at the ground nervously. 

"I hope you've properly tamed that beast." His deep voice made the small figure behind him freeze briefly. 

"Just as well as you your mount, Lord," Jinx answered, a quiver in her voice. She'd dismounted and now carefully led Zephyros next to her, as far away from Sayron and Ruau as she could. "Lord, I'm sorry. I had no choice." 

Sayron looked down on her and nodded briefly. "I could see that." He paused. "I thought I'd been clear. You've insulted my trust, Jinx. From an Overlord to a horde leader, I expected absolute obedience from you." 

In a rush of recklessness Jinx raised her head. "I never was as obedient as a Minion, Lord. Didn't you once say I wasn't comparable to a normal horde member?" She clenched her fists for a moment. "I did it for you. For the war." Next to her Zephyros lowered his head and crawed questioningly. On his back Drip didn't dare move a muscle. 

Eventually, after a silence seemingly lasting forever, as the troops of the Netherworld started moving towards the city walls around them, Sayron spoke. "As long as you don't get any funny ideas, I give you permission to use that beast in battle. We'll discuss this further afterwards." His eyes flashed as Jinx opened her mouth. "Not a wingbeat without permission, Jinx." 

"Certainly not, Lord." The horde leader furiously tried to hide her relief and joy. 

Sayron narrowed his eyes. "And now, to the sky with you. We have a city to conquer!" 

Jinx immediately saluted and jumped back into the saddle via Zephyros' wing. Not a moment later the bat rose up again, high above the Overlord and the remains of the battlefield. "Thank you, Lord!" She raised a tightly clenched fist and cheered wildly. "Thank you!" 

Sayron could hear Gnarl coughing briefly next to his ear. _"Sire, this is… well…"_

"Be glad she's on our side, Gnarl," the Overlord silenced his advisor. "I'm certain of her loyalty." Then he spurred on Ruau and hurried after his troops in a thundering gallop, as they threw themselves into Arcadiopolis cheering, shouting, crashing and flying.

And far away in the heart of the city the Emperor was standing on his balcony, two figures at his side. The woman on his left was concealed in a dark blue robe with a heavy hood, the man on his right was clad in a pristine white toga and wore a glistening monocle. 

The collapse of the city wall was clearly visible by the cloud of dust on the horizon. High above it dark wings were beating the air. 

"I'll ready the Vat, my Emperor," Marius said hastily. He hurried away. 

The hooded woman looked from the dust cloud, far in front of her, to the Emperor, his back turned to her. His wide red cloak waved and fluttered in the rising wind. 

Then Rose turned around as well and disappeared in the suddenly dark shadows of the Imperial Palace. 

Once out of hearing range of the Emperor she pulled her hood down over her face even further. 

"The cycle must take its course," a low voice muttered between the pillars.

**As the army advances General Herbison watches with growing concern.**

**General: Jinx and her giant bat are a clear threat to the Overlord. You've seen how the army chants her name.**

**Fay: But his magic is vastly superior to hers.**

**General: I am aware of the magical implications. But remember the dream they shared?**

**Fay: What dream?**

**General Herbison hastily jogs away: Into the city my dear. For victory! For the reviews this story deserves!**

**Fay: What dream did they share?**


	37. To Glory

**General Herbison and Jinx stride to the main gates of the city as the army advances.**

**Jinx: At last…**

**General Herbison points at her: You've got a bit of blood there, and there, and everywhere.**

**Jinx: The Empire will fall.**

**General: Your armour is kinda damaged.**

**Jinx: And the Minion horde will be the instrument of its destruction.**

**General: You are really gorgeous when you look like you're going to kill someone.**

**Jinx glares at him.**

**General: Yes, that's the look. My gosh you look like you're going to kill me.**

**Jinx pulls out a dagger.**

**General: Oh… fudge!**

**The General runs away shouting for his security.**

**Jinx smiles: That was fun. Anyway, the good General does not own this story. All credit goes to my creator Sunjinjo on deviantart. Enjoy this while I go and find what rock he's hiding under.**

**To Glory**

The dull orange glow from the heart of the world lit a rough stalactite, stabbing down. There was no sign of life in the gargantuan rock formation. Here, at this moment, all activity was limited to the edges and crevices of the giant subterranean cavity.

In a hollow in a corner of the Netherworld, tucked away close to the barracks of the brown Minions, the clicking of claws to rock resounded. A wizened grey Minion impatiently tapped his foot to the ground, and his yellow eyes bored into those of the boy before him. "Again, Sayron. Come on." 

The boy bent over for a moment, his hands to his knees, and growled softly. Then he raised the glowing orange eyes beneath the concealing hood to his teacher, and again outstretched his left hand. Around his wrist a magnificent amber gem had been attached, and it flashed with light as it came closer to the golden life force on the ground between the boy and the grey Minion. 

Gnarl nodded curtly. "Good. Go on." 

Sayron narrowed his eyes to glowing slits and bent his fingers into claws. The life force flickered, hesitantly whirled upwards. The boy with the glowing eyes inhaled sharply. Then the golden orb of light suddenly flew up and vanished into the amber gem. 

"Very well!" Gnarl grinned. "That's it. Well done, young Lord." 

Sayron turned, exhilarated, and ran out of the hollow in the black rock wall, to come to a standstill some distance away, staring up at the brown Hive. Something moved between the fleshy folds. 

Gnarl shuffled after the boy and folded his hands beneath his cloak. This wouldn't take long.  
>Not half a minute later a little clawed hand appeared between the Hive's folds of tissue. For a moment the claws groped around blindly, but then they found another hand, with blue, tattooed fingers. Sayron enthusiastically pulled at the hand and arm of the first Minion he'd spawned on his own, and laughed elatedly as the creature slid out. <p>

"Who are you?" he asked as the large bat-like ears rose up. "What's your name?" 

The Minion coughed. No other brown dared coming closer to wipe open his eyes, so he did so himself, with clumsy fingers. Then he looked at Sayron directly. "Aches." 

Sayron nodded at his first own addition to his father's horde with shining eyes. "Welcome, Aches." 

"Very good, young Lord," Gnarl muttered, as he took Sayron aside as the new Minion was surrounded by an overjoyed brown horde. "But now it's time for the next lesson. Always remember Minions are there to be used. We have Mortis and the Well, but that's not the only reason you shouldn't be afraid to send Minions to their deaths." 

"Minions are there to be used," Sayron repeated slowly. 

"Not to grow attached to or treat as equals," Gnarl went on, a slightly bitter tone to his voice. "You'll get nowhere as an Overlord. Minions live, serve and die. They're only rungs on a ladder to your eventual destiny, your birthright." 

"The Empire," Sayron whispered with burning eyes. 

"Right, young Lord. It's your purpose to knock that disgusting Emperor off his throne, to crack his skull beneath your boots and take his place as the dark ruler of the new world." Gnarl grinned a wicked grin. "Every beginning is small, but I'll make sure you become a greater tyrant than even your father, young Lord." For a moment the old Minion mourned Lord Vessperion's fate. He'd held an unexpected amount of appreciation for the Overlord who'd bloomed so quickly after his emergence, but who'd fallen so abruptly as well. Yes, Gnarl had genuinely liked Vessperion. The eighth Hero had had something not many Overlords had. He'd been more than just a tool of Evil. When he'd fallen, Gnarl had never given up hope of his son inheriting the throne one day, even with the pregnant mother far beyond his reach. And now, here he was, Sayron; young, barely seven years of age.

Normally the grey Minion didn't take in such young candidates, but this was something else. He was willing to do quite a lot to help Sayron reach his goals. 

"It's your destiny to teach the Glorious Empire a lesson, young Lord. Use these Minions as merciless tools and take all their hope from them." Gnarl's eyes flared ominously. "For your… dark… glory."

**(PRESENT DAY)**

Arcadiopolis. 

There it was, straight ahead, with the city wall broken open and without protection from the blue anti-magic shield. The white buildings, temples and pillars shone in the sunlight, but from the north the clouds of the Netherworld already rolled in, led by the three giant flying forms that swiftly crossed the battlefield to cast their shadow over the city. 

A fourth flyer had taken to the air recently, but this one didn't fly too high. These brown, leathery wings stayed close to Lord Sayron as he thundered across the northern fields atop his hornbeast, straight for the largest hole in the city wall and his hordes. His armies cheered wildly as he rushed between them, and weapons were raised in an exhilarated greeting.

Sayron grinned wildly and his eyes flashed. Then he cast a glance up at his flying companion. Jinx briefly saluted from Zephyros' back. 

There was no opposition from the city – at least, not yet. The Empire didn't dare attack now, and preferred a defensive stance. Perhaps they'd stand a chance on their own ground. 

Ruau reached the city wall, and Zephyros, too, glided towards the crumbling opening in the marble on silent wings. Jinx reined in her mount as she saw Sayron slow down. A moment later the bat landed on the scorched, churned-up soil with flapping wings, just before the first low buildings. The horde leader caught Gnarl's voice, close to Sayron. _"Arcadiopolis is laid open before you like a putrid oyster, Sire. Do drink in the sights and sounds of city life. Time to savour this sweet moment… just before you trample it all into grey sludge!"_ The advisor laughed demonically, but quickly stopped that as he caught a blue flash from the corner of Sayron's eye. 

Sayron turned to the left, to the remains of the city wall. A blue flame sprayed up and died away, high above him on the rubble. A familiar face stared down at him, and the Overlord gripped on to his mace. Next to him Jinx growled briefly. 

"Fool," Marius Ovidius spoke haughtily. "Do you really think you can defeat the great Emperor Solarius? Even now he is recapturing the magical energy released from the Tower Heart… To add to our," he coughed briefly, "collection, from the rest of these lands."  
>Jinx slowly slid from the saddle. Right next to her Minc was about to jump forward, an arrow tipped with bright yellow feathers already on his bow, but she dragged him back by the scruff of his neck. Her eyes were wide as she realized what Marius had just said. Next to her Gnarl appeared to come to the same conclusion. <em>"They've been storing magic all along… That must be what the Eradicator cannons are really for! So much for their cleansing programme. Thieving programme, more like!"<em> 

Marius smiled thinly. "We had thought the power was lost. So considerate of you to bring it straight to us! Solarius will be waiting for you, Witch Boy!" 

Gnarl swallowed. _"You must hurry, Sire. If Solarius recaptures that magical energy that is floating about this place, there's no telling how much power he might wield. It may be… even greater than yours."_

Marius laughed. "Once he has taken your energy, and wiped out that rat army, he will turn your little domain into sewers when he rebuilds this land in his own glorious image!" 

"Now you can go get him," Jinx hissed to Minc. The Minion pulled back his arrow again, but the bone tip ricocheted from the pile of marble shards – Marius had already vanished in his blue flame. 

"This isn't good," Sayron muttered. Then he raised his voice. "_Onwards!_ We have no time to lose! Kill everyone resisting! I want the Palace taken before noon!" 

A chorus of agreement went up, but a few Minions looked up at their Master in confusion. Scabies, having dismounted from Stabbit's back by now, scratched his head. "Only those resisting?" he asked himself. On his shoulder Duda puffed up his feathers, a glistening in his insane parrot eyes. 

"Enough will resist," Rags, the brown at his side, remarked nervously. "Look." He nodded at the streets before them. 

However white and shining the city had looked from afar, like every city in history Arcadiopolis, too, had its suburbs. Not just the slums had muddy streets, and like there, wood and smudgy plaster dominated here, not the white marble of uptown. Here and there sign posts of shops or taverns swayed in the upcoming wind. Here, the small merchants and the poorer people made a living. 

But those had probably all hid away in their homes, or fled to the Palace by now. The only people still out and about now marched into sight, all clad in green or blue tunics, and led by figures in red cloaks. 

"Right, I'm needed on the ground," Jinx nodded, hastily rolling off her ropes. She turned to Drip, still in the saddle of her mount. "Take the reins, Drip. Let him have his way, he should be unstoppable with you as his healer." She turned back to the soldiers, froze, and then looked up at Sayron. "…Permission, Lord?" 

The Overlord nodded silently. At that Zephyros launched himself into the air, as Drip still struggled to haul himself to the front saddle. 

The soldiers had kept standing, a few hundred yards further into the city. It was clear they'd defend Arcadiopolis with everything they still had in them. Zephyros wasn't able to do much yet, as the houses were too close together here. 

However, this was a good situation for her, Sayron and the hordes. This was the second time she'd thought it; _this battle is going to be won by Minions._ The human armies didn't have much room for movement as long as the battle took place in these streets, but the Minions climbed the walls and rooftops with ease. 

To be exact, that was what was happening at this moment. Jinx hurriedly started moving as she realized fiery lights shot up the houses, followed by black spiders. Behind her she heard Sayron roar his commands. "Spread out through the streets! Always keep pushing towards the heart of the city! Break those formations!" Men and Minions streamed through the alleys and streets as poison through a circulatory system. The soldiers before them didn't back away, however, as they'd done on the battlefield outside the city. These soldiers had accepted they were going to die. Even more so as the yeti had joined the warriors and was even now shattering walls and roofs on his path to the Empire's armies. 

_One last battle._ Sayron pulled his mace off his back and galloped at the front lines screaming. 

_One last plunge into the deep._ Jinx bounced from wall to wall to distract the archers on the rooftops and in the middle of the Imperial formation and then threw herself between the soldiers to stab them in the back. 

_One last breath for those who took us down._ Seffec sprinted through a side street at the head of his own men, encountered a separate part of the legion and let his scimitar pull long bloody swathes across the unprotected arms and neck of a young green-tunicked soldier. 

Somewhere high above them Zephyros screeched, just before he fell down from the skies with folded wings towards a spot where he could tear apart enemy formations with tooth and claw. 

_"To glory,"_ Gnarl muttered involuntarily, from his vantage point in the Netherworld.

Zephyros wasn't the only one to fall down with screaming wings. 

The three Unholy Minions soared over the army, searching for places where they could make their power count in strategic ways. Well, Fever and Goudvis were. Stabbit came down very soon, hooked on to a plastered wall with claws and wings and belched thick green clouds of gas into the windows of every house he could reach with a mighty rumbling sound. The screams of the people hiding inside soon turned to insane laughter, then coughing. Stabbit clambered further in search of new windows and victims. 

Not far from the green Unholy, salamanders hooked on to the walls. They were accompanied by reds without mounts – a lot of them had perished in the battle on the fields. Simmer's mount was no more, trampled by a Gargantuan and immediately exploded, as Simmer himself had barely been fast enough to get away. Now the red stuck by his best friend, Sear, who fortunately still had his salamander with him – without the animal the one-armed Minion wouldn't be able to climb any longer. 

The two looked up in pleasant surprise as Stabbit filled their block with gas. Simmer's glowing hands had been firmly pressed to the wall, but now he pulled them loose, called forth the smallest of flames... and him and Sear were sprinting along the smudgy walls, as half of the block burst apart not a second later. Debris screamed through the air, crushing the fighting parties in the street and damaging other buildings. The action was picked up by other reds, and soon Stabbit's scrambling course along the walls was followed by gargantuan explosions. Men and Minions dove away to the left and right, some of them roaring with laughter because of pure fun or the temporary insanity of the gas. Eventually the chaos reached Sayron, who'd made good use of the confusion by marching on quite a bit further, but was having trouble with the flying debris now. He turned around and bored his gaze into the eyes of the green flyer, clinging to a wall with a smoking maw. "No more," he ordered in a thundering voice. Stabbit stared back, and for a moment his eyes seemed to darken, but then he jumped up from the wall with flapping wings and clawed himself up into the sky. 

Simmer and Sear flew from the inferno like smoking stars, together with a whole lot of other Minions in varying degrees of singedness. The blues immediately hurried out of the horde to heal them. 

Jinx landed next to Sayron on hands and knees. "We can't go back any longer," she remarked, glancing back to the devouring fire. 

"We haven't been able to since we emerged from the Black Gate," the Overlord replied. "Come on, we haven't even left the suburbs."

In the Minion vanguard there were a few so reckless it almost had to mean they were here for something else than just their Master and the pure joy of battle. There were a few who had something to prove. 

Scythe wasn't the most loved leader the greens had had. He didn't take that much responsibility, didn't even always walk in the front and refused the challenges of other clan members. He didn't have the best reputation with the clan. But he'd had enough of that now. He furiously tried to get to the centurion of this legion, to lower the morale of the soldiers and raise his own status with his death. He was up against two other greens worth noting, however. Whisper was clawing off people's throats to the left and right, and many of his victims wore black tunics. He was assisted by Ramul. It wasn't the easiest occupation to eliminate the Empire's finest one after the other, and the two bled on all sides, from cuts and stab wounds, inflicted by the elite soldiers' swords and spears, but each apart was more successful than Scythe. The current leader was hissing with frustration. He knew the horde was watching, however fierce the battle was, however distracted they were. 

And then, just when Scythe had free range and raised his claws to the flabby throat of the man in the red cloak, another Minion was ahead of him. A small brown shot between the legs of the men behind him, flew past the green and flashed behind the centurion. Then Kniff flung himself, the tips of the cloak clenched in his claws, over the commander's head, pulled out his weapon and stabbed it squarely in the windpipe. The centurion collapsed gurgling. 

Scythe's eyes widened, and for a moment he appeared about to raise his claw knives against the brown Minion, but then a rumbling coursed through the ground. All Minions in the direct surroundings shot away. 

Then the ground beneath the legion opened, and Omari's sand worm dug itself up, with crushing jaws and a mighty roar. Not all Minions had been fast enough, and a few were flung away by the force of the beast. Scythe and Whisper flew into opposite directions.  
>As Whisper scrambled to his feet, Ramul was grinning at him a few feet away. "Will be alright," the spider rider hissed. "Won't be leader for long." Then he flung himself onto his waiting spider's back and shot up a shattered wall.<p>

The sandworm and the yeti joined forces, and from the other side of the legions Zephyros took every opportunity to throw himself between the men. Time and time again his wings were pierced and ripped by swords and arrows, and his snout was dripping with blood that wasn't all from his prey, but on his back Drip constantly strained his healing magic. Every wound rippled as if water streamed over it, and healed. Only pale scars remained on the dark webs of his wings, and the flyer kept attacking with unabated rage and aggression. 

On Sayron's side of the battle, bits of wall and roof kept coming down, and he was forced to use his lightning shields as much as he could to protect his own armies. 

Then a roar coursed through the air. The Overlord abruptly looked up and shook the blood from his eyes. This didn't sound good… 

At the head of his army he could see what was coming his way. Armoured figures, broad as houses. Helmets with slit-shaped eyeholes. Fists like boulders. 

They had more Gargantuans. They had so many more Gargantuans. 

Stabbit soared over the oncoming mob and let green gas stream from his maw, but where he could glide over the clouds without beating his wings, Zephyros' heavy flapping almost immediately blew them away. Jinx ran forward and put her hands to her mouth to yell, but Sayron kept her standing. 

"He's thinning them! We can't rely on the gas alone!" 

"Then how?" Jinx shouted. She desperately clenched her ropes, her eyes flashing between Sayron and the Gargantuans. "Sayron, we haven't even left the suburbs!" she echoed his earlier words. 

The Overlord briefly shook his head. That was all he had time for before he was forced to defend himself with all his strength, facing the mountain of flesh now descending upon him.  
>His lightning and mace flashed equally bright in the struggle that followed. Riding Ruau, the Overlord almost reached his opponent's eye height; the only one he managed to block by himself, though he could electrocute a few others by flinging around lightning at random, turning their bodies into a low barricade to slow the rest of them. He didn't succeed at that with the Gargantuan attacking him directly. Missed blows shook the wall behind the Overlord, and bits of rubble came tumbling down. Further back the Ruborians and Nordbergians fell out to stop the flood of giant warriors, but the breaking of bones did come mainly from their side. <p>

This wasn't good. The Overlord and his armies hadn't been counting on this, and neither had Stabbit.

The two other flyers were still soaring high above the city, in search of their own suitable targets. Fever knew for certain there was something in the city, especially for him, calling out to him… but he couldn't find it yet. It did resemble the Nordbergian fireworks storage so much he couldn't abandon the search, however. 

Goudvis, too, knew he would be able to give the right push somewhere, but he couldn't find out where. Perhaps it was too far away now. 

Then Fever spun from the air. He'd found his goal, closer to the heart of Arcadiopolis, where the buildings were higher and white pillars dominated the streets. 

It was a large, square building, in the typical Imperial style of architecture. White marble, but he knew there was common brick beneath that thin layer. The Empire was young – only founded after Vessperion's fall, twenty years ago – and despite the grand appearance the Glorious Empire was barely more than an inflated settlement, worth less than Spree's farmlands. Fever knew it, and his black-lined eyes saw it as he ripped away parts of the roof with ivory claws. 

Shelves and shelves full of spherical objects, large, so large he couldn't take too many of them in his claws at once. Not many, but just enough… 

He'd felt destruction, not surprising considering what he was. Not surprising, but useful. Useful and fun… 

Fever, the red flyer, outstretched all four of his claws and swiped them through the Imperial bomb arsenal, and grabbed more than a dozen bombs of the kind that'd been used against them that very same morning, launched from the catapults on the city wall. Then he kicked away from the devastated roof, soared over the city with slightly more trouble than before, and opened his foot claws. 

Fire sprayed down amidst the Gargantuan hordes. From the back of their ranks the red flyer heard the shouting of commands, and soldiers started pulling the huge creatures away from the vanguard, to attempt and save them to fight in another attack. 

Not if it was up to Fever. His fingers relaxed and new bombs followed those from his foot claws. Then he beat his wings and glided back to the arsenal to get more.

The Gargantuans were irrevocably chased apart by the explosions. Sayron stared up with streaming eyes, peering through the clouds of smoke and the rising fire, and saw red wings cut through the air. The role of the flying Minions was far from over, it would seem. 

He stared up as his mount raced through the scattered formations at breakneck speed, faster and faster through the suburbs until the houses grew less grubby and rickety and white, flawless marble took over. The buildings were higher here and he felt the urge to stare up while turning around, just like when he'd been brought into the Arena. 

At the back of the Overlord's formations Stabbit was still belching his gas around, and everyone inhaling it almost immediately started laughing breathlessly, fell upon his knees coughing or burst into jolting, hysterical dance. Some soldiers stabbed around without control, unable to discern friend from foe any longer, so Sayron's rearguard could easily take them out one by one. 

During this wild ride the Minions really got into the mood. Rampus, a brown who'd always been more reckless than the average – or to Sayron's liking – fell out away from the hordes time and time again to attack random people, so the path the Minions took no longer held any survivors. If the Overlord were to have seen it, he might not have been too happy, as he planned to keep Arcadiopolis' population largely intact, as he'd done with Nordberg and Ignavopolis. Dead people didn't make very good subjects. 

There were many Minions who did know as much. Rasp, the leader of the Minions from Ignavopolis, and his friend Nails tried to keep Rampus on track, but without much success.

As the bloodthirsty Minion kept busy with everything that moved, they had their claws full with the remaining soldiers and the Gargantuans spared by Fever's bombardment. The red flyer was still circling above them, claws full of gleaming projectiles, but he couldn't drop them now without striking the army itself. 

Then the Minions too reached the richer parts of the city, and the screaming started – the higher-pitched screams, the screams so much sweeter than those of dying soldiers, the screams of terrified people, of women and children, of civilians. Minions burst into homes to all sides and dragged out the women, stole the jewellery and ripped togas off fat bodies, filled themselves with wine and even broke down pillars and statues, sometimes aided by the flames of the salamanders making the marble and granite crack with their intense heat atop every wall and roof. Sayron let himself go as well, in the end, flinging around lightning in a way he hadn't done often before, but he did seem to spare the people who didn't attack him. 

Gnarl sounded raspier than normal as he made himself heard again. _"Put an end to those over-privileged spongers, Sire!"  
><em> 

"I don't know, Gnarl, this is fun too," Sayron chuckled with his eyes on a few men and women who'd just thrown themselves before Ruau's hooves, heads down and their arms outstretched to him. "Fun, and easier." 

_"Greed and avarice in the face of innocence and poverty are __our__ traits! Crush the competition, Master!"_

"Not now, Gnarl." 

_"As long as you know where the glory is to be had, Master…"  
><em> 

"Certainly," Sayron grinned. "You'll be seeing enough blood, don't worry." 

_"Do hurry, Solarius is growing stronger by the minute."  
><em> 

"No time to lose," the Overlord nodded. "Minions! Less fun, more haste!" 

A chorus of raspy voices went up in the area his voice could be heard. "Yes, Master!"

Sayron's army had spread widely by now, both the men and the Minions. The Minions took more effort to actually enter houses, however, being smaller and having less scruples to kill the people barring their way. In the end, the humans and elves had more ethical dilemmas, even though this was the Empire. 

And so the four hordes rushed through large villas, the dwellings of slaves, temples to the Empire's many young gods, and a huge bathhouse at top speed. The blue Minions didn't know what they were seeing as they arrived at the latter; giant surfaces of water in the shape of many baths, some cold, some so hot steam came off them. Fountains sprayed the water around everywhere, sculptures let it flow from their mouths and hands, and in many places it splattered down along the walls. Ferns and hanging plants concealed some corners from view, and behind them lay even more welcome water. 

It was hard to not become distracted here. For the Minions, at least. The Imperials in the baths turned their attention to the new visitors all too easily. None of them was in the position to defend themselves, however, sometimes because of their lack of armour or any clothing at all, sometimes because of a combination of excess fat and a lack of clothing, and the browns and greens amused themselves greatly; soon some baths were as red as Solarius' banner. Most of the blues clambered out of those baths, swearing at the warriors as they went. 

Initially the bathhouse seemed to be amusement to the hordes only, and most of the Minions quickly left it, certainly the members of the three clans unable to swim. The blues remained there longer, but they only really started paying attention as the steam from the hotter baths disappeared, and some of the cold ones froze over completely. 

The waterfalls faltered, and frost appeared on the walls…

Above the city Goudvis finally heard his calling clearly. Clear as the purest ice. 

He'd been soaring low over the rooftops, searching at the edges of uptown, but only now did he really see his goal. He should have known. 

Now the blues were inside, it was all so logical. He arrived there not a minute later. 

He grinned. "Turn the Netherworld into sewers, Marius?" he spoke to the wind. "I think not…" He beat his wings forward, so he came hanging in the air upright and soared up above his target. White, icy cold mist surrounded him as he bent his webbed fingers into claws and threw back his head. Fierce, black-lined eyes pierced the sky, and the clouds seemed to back away before the intensity of his gaze. 

"The sewers… _I am the sewers!_" His voice echoed through the air, down to the bathhouse, and every tone resonated though the pipes and sluices bringing the water in, deep down to the sewers beneath the city. Fine white veins of freezing cold branched away over the algae-covered metal. 

From deep within the system a muted sound came, vibrating and low. It did resemble a croak. 

Then countless pipes burst apart, and dozens of water-supplying points in the bathhouse flew open; in the walls, at the bottom of the baths, even in the ceiling. A few elegant hallways further a whole row of toilets suddenly exploded, and after that the halls were a lot less elegant altogether. 

In the bathhouse brown sludge leaked into the clear water, and a lot of blues hoisted themselves out of the baths at once. None of them fled the bathhouse, however. 

Then something gurgled up through the veils of sludge, to the surface of the baths, simultaneously, from all drains. Small bubbles burst apart. The blues and a few Imperial survivors carefully bent over the baths. 

Then the first blunt head appeared, with a greyish skin, a broad mouth and golden, glistening eyes. Powerful legs propelled the creature upwards, and it reached the surface and then the edge of the bath with great speed. There, it reached the blues with a single leap. 

It was an Imperial giant frog, and the first of many. From all the holes in the walls and on the bottoms of the baths a true wave of the animals appeared, and the croaking from the sewers now took over the bathhouse. 

The Minions outside had apparently noticed quite a few blues had remained inside while they were needed in the streets, because Miko and Soaker, the blue leader, now struggled their way in through the masses of fleeing citizens. Those two kept standing immediately as they saw the frogs, however, and they stared at the amphibian mass with wide eyes.

"What…" 

"Sayron defeated the Frog King!" Miko shouted. "The frogs are ours! Soaker…" He turned to the blue leader with a shark's grin. "Spider Queen, Salamander King… Frog King." 

"Mounts?" Soaker uttered in disbelief. "For us?" 

"Come on!" Miko ran forward, approached a frog and lay a hand on the blunt snout. The frog bent its head and slightly lowered itself on its hind legs. Miko carefully slung a leg over the broad, slippery back and lay his hands around the head. The frog immediately took a leap towards the exit of the bathhouse. The blue Minion cheered with joy. "Soaker, come on! You have the right to the biggest, fattest frog you can find!" 

The blue leader looked around in a daze as half his clan picked mounts, but then took action and approached an amphibian in the heart of the frog swarm. The creature was huge, perhaps the largest of them, and his mouth was at least a meter wide. Soaker knew it was true – he now truly was a match for Scythe and Hoarse and Jinx, he was entitled to the largest mount. 

As the blues left the bathhouse it was with giant leaps, far faster than they could have ran, and they swiftly joined the battle again. There Soaker set an example with a quickly concocted strategy. He guided his frog to the piles of dead and made sure his mount took three dead Minions in its mouth, and quickly jumped out of the battle again, before something could harm his frog. The rest of the clan soon followed. With the help of the frogs they were far faster and less vulnerable than normal – the blue clan wouldn't have to revive its own members anytime soon.

While the blues had discovered the bathhouse, a whole lot of Minions had hugely amused themselves in another building altogether. To be honest it seemed the majority of the armies was being drawn here, Minions as well as men and elves. It was an eating house, the most gigantic eating house the hordes had ever seen, grander and more hung with food than Drearius' villa or even Melvin's kitchen of old. Everyone was hungry, as the battle had started early that morning and no one had really had a break up to now. The Minions put their teeth into everything edible without control, and into some inedible things too; some Ruborians took time to actually pick spices, and the elves regarded all meat eaters with a haughty sort of disgust, but carefully ignored the new habits of their own queen. 

One of the first blues who'd discovered the eating house, perhaps the first to enter it, couldn't believe his luck. He'd always been a little fatter than the average blue, something that didn't impair him while swimming, however. He'd become Quaver's apprentice shortly after his spawning; the bard also oversaw a lot of the cookery in and around the Tower, and the blue resembled him in being interested in finer food than the fish from the cold stream.

The blue's name was Thud, and at this moment he was busy filling empty bombshells with the spiciest sauces he could find, at the same time combining the many ingredients from the kitchens into dishes and concoctions not appealing to everyone. Most of it was flung back at him, but Thud knew for certain he'd be a great chef one day. 

As time went on and the sun climbed ever closer to its zenith all dark armies streamed towards the eating house. The staff and the rest of the Imperials had fled long ago, and Sayron's side had free range now. Eventually the Overlord himself had no choice left and he followed his men. The battle came to a standstill, but Fever, Stabbit and Goudvis made sure the Empire couldn't claim back what terrain they'd lost; the green Unholy kept them laughing, dancing and dying, and Fever guarded the borders of Sayron's advance with bombs and jets of flame. Goudvis let ice rain down every now and then, but he'd clearly discovered a new hobby with the sewers; everywhere in Arcadiopolis pipes and toilets now exploded, and the blue flyer couldn't seem to stop laughing.

Eventually the eating house was abandoned in a kind of mass exodus. Some had armed themselves in the meantime; Thud with his sauce grenades, many others with kitchen knives, forks and in the single case, spoons, and quite a few reds had equipped themselves with bottles of liquor that could come in handy as molotovs when the need arose. 

The need did arise rather quickly. The Unholy Minions had kept the Empire at a distance, but there was a clear border, and a whole company of Sentinels was now forcing the flyers back steadily. The hooded figures were shielded from Fever's explosions by a combination of rubble and Gargantuans. 

Sayron's armies knew how to handle that. First the men were sent forward to deal with the Sentinels, then the Minions quickly followed to help with the Gargantuans as the Ruborians and Nordbergians could no longer outrun them. The last few Sentinels were shot down from the rubble by Masud, Minc and the other archers. 

From there the advance was swift. In the eating house some mount had eaten things they weren't used to, so some frogs gave up strangely shaped pellets the soldiers didn't react that well to, the salamanders breathed out jets of flame of varying colour reaching further than ever in some cases, and a whole lot of spiders were actually hyperactive now. The same applied to the Minions. And even in the cases where the food hadn't had any influences the armies had found new strength, and that was exactly what they needed now time probably started running out. The Emperor was still waiting in the Palace, and he probably grew stronger every moment.

It was Fever who eventually broke the last barricade separating them from the next stage of their assault. A row of massive villas was flattened at once by one of his bombs, and as the dust settled and the hornbeast carried Sayron forward, he and his first followers had a view of a slightly singed field, sectioned by marble paths in a geometric pattern. Now the houses were gone the Overlord could also look up at the rest of the city – the heart of Arcadiopolis lay on a high hill, and from here he could see an enormous building, with high white walls, hung with red banners, and connected to an even slightly higher construction which couldn't be anything other than the Arena, though he'd only ever seen that place from the inside. 

The Palace, however, was surrounded by something he had seen before – an unmistakable blue haze. 

_"Look, Solarius is cowering behind his very own anti-magic shield,"_ Gnarl scoffed. _"It's time to stop that malarkey, we'll need our magic in there." _

"I'm trying my best to figure out how, Gnarl." 

Behind them Fever flew away to gather more bombs from the arsenal, even though it was burning by now – it'd been reached by fires from the surroundings, and no one took an effort to extinguish them. Soon he wouldn't have any munition anymore, but hopefully the battle would be decided by then. Stabbit and Goudvis were flying around elsewhere, busy terrorizing other parts of the city; it didn't seem like they let themselves be commanded by Sayron any longer. 

Past the field before the troops lay a low marble wall, broken by a single copper gate. People thronged before that gate, pounding it with their fists and screaming, but the legion on the wall didn't even look at them. They only had eyes for the army approaching through the clouds of dust – Sayron on Ruau's back, the yeti at his left hand, the Ruborian sand worm breaking through the houses a little way behind him, and everywhere around him the people, elves and mainly the Minions. Jinx appeared atop a pile of debris, trying not to cough, and feasted her eyes in amazement. "Lord, we're almost at the Fountains! Solarius' inner circle!" 

"I can see that," Sayron spoke. "A few hours to go, at most…" 

Then a command from the wall cut through the dust-laden air. "Throw your bombs!" 

"But there are citizens out there, centurion!" it resounded. 

"They'll die in glory for their Empire, soldier!" 

"But…!" 

"That was an order!" the commander's deeper voice rang out. At the same moment Sayron raised his mace. Dark wings also cut through the air; Zephyros was on his way. 

"Reds – climb that wall and kill them!" the Overlord roared. 

"Hail! Hail! Hail to Solarius!" a slightly uncertain voice resounded. At the same time the first bombs rained down from the ranks on the wall. The cry was taken up by others, and it didn't take long before all soldiers on the wall were chanting, some with their eyes firmly shut at the white wall beneath them was painted red with blood and entrails, by far not all of them from Sayron's army. The Overlord slowed in shock and stared at the bloodbath – he hadn't expected the Empire to kill its own this easily. 

But the reds shot through the flames on their salamanders and climbed the wall with a speed reserved to only them, and Jinx, too, flew between the explosions. Not much later a struggle ensued on the wall as well, and it turned out elite soldiers had been standing behind the bomb throwers – black tunics. Some of those let themselves fall from the wall as soon as the bomb throwers ran out of munition, and the two armies threw themselves against each other. The roar of the yeti and the rumble of the sand worm were even drowned out by Zephyros' high screech. 

"Where's Fever?" Jinx shouted down from the wall, pushing two bomb throwers down into the sand worm's waiting maw, open wide just above the ground. "This wall needs to be broken open!" 

"No idea, Jinx, we have to do it," was the answer from Sayron's side, still on the field. "Can you get the gate open?" 

Jinx glanced down the other side of the wall, during the few seconds of respite the soldiers granted her. There she saw even more grass, with the first Fountain in the heart of it; one of Solarius' sacred altars to himself, surrounded with people – civilians who'd been evacuated from the surrounding areas, thinking they'd be safe here. This was the first time she ever saw one of the Fountains, and for a moment she was distracted, despite the hapless prey behind the wall. She'd never been able to venture this deep into the richest parts of her own city. 

But it was teeming with soldiers at the foot of the wall, and even with some salamanders and spider riders she wouldn't succeed in opening the gate from the other side. For that, the wall needed to be broken open, so everyone could pass. "Omari!" she shouted into the fighting mass. "Get over here, use that worm of yours!" 

"The jaws of the Lord of Sands are already damaged, milady!" the rolling Ruborian accent came back, somewhere to her left. Jinx peered into that direction, but couldn't make out the mage. "There's no other way! Come on!" 

"That's an order too, Omari," Sayron thundered. 

"Yes, my Lord!" A few loud commands in brusque Ruborian resounded from the slaughter, and the sand worm's maw retracted into the earth for a moment. Shortly after a tremor coursed beneath the marble paths and the blood-stained grass, straight for the wall. Jinx, the reds and the greens threw themselves aside, just in time – in a thundering explosion of marble shards, the two unhinged copper gates and lots of soldiers the wall burst apart. 

This time Sayron didn't wait for the dust to settle. He immediately stormed forward, closely followed by all the others. He didn't have much choice as Ruau suddenly slowed down, however – a blue light flared just before the hornbeast's nose. Sayron expected Marius and already swept his mace forward, but the weapon got stuck in the thick skin of a Gargantuan – one of the two that'd suddenly appeared to block his way. 

Marius was there, however, atop the remains of the wall, as he'd done before. To Sayron's great surprise the Speaker was grinning. The skinny Imperial looked over the heads of the Overlord and the Gargantuans to the people thronging around the Fountain. "Drink, good people," his voice rang out. "Solarius will protect you. The Nectar will save you." 

Immediately his words were obeyed, and as Sayron and the others struggled with the Gargantuans the people crowded around the enormous marble Fountain to dip their hands and faces into the water. The ones to drink it threw back their heads, and some raised up their arms as if in overwhelming ecstasy. "I feel alive," one of them uttered. "So alive. So ready to… _kill!_" Here his voice turned into something rasping, something gurgling and terrible. And before the eyes of Sayron's army their skins turned to a dull, but all too familiar grey, and their eyes paled into white. 

The Fountain created a growing number of mutants, exactly like the mutants from the Wasteland. There had to be ooze mixed through the water. And strangely enough the sight of the mutations didn't repel the healthy people at all – the fear of Sayron was stronger. The promise of Solarius was stronger. 

Jinx looked around in shock. They were surrounded by a crescent of zombies… swift, lethal zombies. Their bite meant mutation. But slowing here meant a stronger Emperor. She gripped her sword, briefly closed her eyes, and stormed forward again. 

Only to slow as she heard Sayron call out her name. She abruptly turned, as obedient as a real Minion for a moment. 

"Jinx! You know where the other Fountains are! Lead Fay and the others there, I can handle this!" 

She stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "There's four, Fay and I will go to the first two. The last one lies just before the Palace, I'll see you there!" Sayron nodded back, squinting to shield his eyes from the heat of nearby salamander fire. "Good luck!" 

Jinx didn't waste any time and shot right through to the elven queen. Soon two separate legions hurried away, to split not far from the Overlord – small, fast groups weren't easily stopped by the mutants and soldiers. Sayron saw Jinx lead a whole group of Minions and Ruborians north through the violence, and Fay took a part of her elves south. Then he was forced to pay attention to his own battle. Determined, he cut himself a way towards the white marble Fountain – the epicentre of the horde of mutants.

**A division of human and elf soldiers flank General Herbison as he strides through the streets to reinforce the Overlord.**

**General: In the words of a great artist of war, 'Know thyself, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.' Ah Sun Tzu, where would I be without his teachings.**

**Elf: You study war?**

**General: The art of war is both terrible and beautiful. Here's another quote, 'Let your great objective be victory, not lengthy campaigns.' In other words, try to win a fight without drawing it out and costing more lives and destruction.**

**Elf: You humans seem to relish warfare.**

**General: Shut up you hippie. Now get over there and kill some Imperials, for Jinx!**

**His forces stare: What?**

**General coughs quickly: I mean… for the Overlord!**

**The troops cheer and run past.**

**General: That was awkward… please review readers.**


	38. To Glory Part 2

**General Herbison: So first we stormed the fields of war, then we fought hordes of enemies and artillery to break open the blooming gates, now we've got to shut down another anti-magic shield by destroying a bunch of magical fountains scattered throughout the capital?**

**Jinx: Sounds about right.**

**General: I'll hand it to them, it's a good tactical move to keep us running around while dwindling our numbers and preparing for the last stand.**

**Jinx: Whose side are you on?**

**General: I'm only pretending to be on your side in order to gain control of the military then use it to wipe out all non-humans and purge magical scum from the face of existence.**

**An awkward silence follows and tumbleweed drifts past.**

**Jinx: Seriously?**

**General: Heck no! I'm on your side to the end my dear. Disclaimer time, I do not own this story, it all belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart as does her OCs. Enjoy.**

**To Glory Part 2**

Fay practically flew to the south, her red hair and black dress fluttering behind her, as her men could barely keep up with her. Green vines full of thorns and poison glands streamed from her fingertips, strangling and destroying everything in her path. She couldn't wait to take down the Fountain that'd been assigned to her, in the direction Jinx had shown her, and then return to her dark Lord's side. Not that she worried about him getting trouble with his own source of mutants, but she didn't like being away from him too long. 

The houses here were gigantic. Every wall was a flawless, snowy white surface full of reliefs, every broad street was decorated with statues of gods and elegant, slender pine trees, and the only thing marring the city here were the loose petals of the many flowers growing everywhere on roofs, walls and in flowerbeds. But not for long. 

Fay only had to outstretch her hands before those flowers obeyed her, and she enjoyed the irony as she turned the beauty of Arcadiopolis against its inhabitants and defenders. It was crawling with soldiers here, the only people still in the streets. The civilians had to have fled, to the Fountains or the Palace itself. 

It didn't take long before she found them. The Fountain was surrounded by a plain of grass, and that field was full of people, immediately throwing themselves onto the clear water as they saw her and the elves approaching. 

"Do you think that will stop us?" Fay mocked them. "Where are you, Marius? Solarius? Show your faces to these loyal people!" She outstretched a hand and flung half a dozen mutants back into the Fountain. They scrambled up just as fast, hissing, with their mouths open way wider than previously possible. The queen only smiled. "My people," she called out. "You survived Sayron at Orntal. You are the strongest. Let them see what the elves can do under the black banner!"

In the north another blood bath had broken loose. Jinx and Seffec both led – respectively – a large group of Minions and Ruborians, combined hopefully enough to break through the waves of mutants. Surprisingly enough, the people were still drinking from the Fountain – Solarius' hand reached very far, the Imperials trusted him blindly. They had no idea the mutation wouldn't be reversible. But Jinx and Seffec, both of them having grown up in Arcadiopolis, knew all about their loyalty. The Emperor was a god to most of the people.  
>Some mutants hadn't changed much, but others sported grotesque deformities – shifted or fused bones, sometimes with spikes in random places breaking through their skin, or eyes covered with greyish membranes. Some Minions and all Ruborians vividly remembered the outbreak in Nordberg, and they fought even harder than the rest to prevent the plague from spreading to the rest of the city – that being of even higher priority than taking the Fountain itself. <p>

On the rooftops of the surrounding villas, Sentinels and archers stood watch, even though the Sentinels kept at a distance; the Netherworld's archers had no trouble striking the dark-robed figures, even in the heat of battle, and the anti-magic had no grip on the Ruborians.

Omari was still with Sayron, in the hopes of his sand worm being able to help in some way. The beast couldn't be used to attack the Fountain from below, as it'd ingest the ooze, and the last thing the Overlord wanted was a mutated sand worm. 

Scabies was with this fight, at the edge of the chaos. He withstood his urge to storm into battle – he hadn't been in Nordberg, but he knew what mutants could do, and he rather suppressed his violent instincts for the time being, so he could pick off the Imperials one by one from the outside. The mutants didn't seem to notice him as long as he kept shooting away every time. Above his head his parrot flew in circles – like him, with suppressed aggression, as the bird would be just as lost were he to ingest mutated blood. Thus far he'd succeeded in dodging the Imperial archers' arrows, and every now and then he flew up to the roofs to attack hands and faces with his sharpened beak and claws. 

Until the red macaw was struck, all at once. 

An arrow tipped with feathers as red as his own protruded from the animal's chest as he tumbled down. Scabies followed the fall with wide eyes, and then sprinted forward. Duda meant as much to him as Letho to Ramul – the spider had been dragged to the blues a few times already, and the green Minion had threatened the healers just as long as needed until they'd helped the mount. 

Now the blues had joined the battle, however, leaping to and fro with their frogs at unmatched speeds, and Jinx' company didn't have very many with them. Scabies couldn't hope they'd take time for a parrot as the mutants advanced. 

As the brown Minion staggered out of the battle he had Duda in his arms, but the parrot didn't react as he removed the arrow. The Minion stared down at the bird, no longer aware of his surroundings, and before he knew it a mutant had noticed him, had stormed towards him and dealt such a blow with a clawed hand the Minion spun on his axis. Scabies dropped Duda and clutched at his eye socket – turned into a bloody, leaking mass with one blow. 

The Minion growled and got ready to fight back, only spurred on by his pain and his grief for Duda. 

A little way further the Ruborians clearly had trouble as a group of black-tunicked spear carriers joined the mutants. Jinx fought with everything she had, but it didn't seem to be enough; she could barely reach her fellow warriors. 

That was the moment the wings appeared again.

At the first Fountain Sayron wasn't having much success either. His Minions were dying around him, at the misshapen claws of the mutants, after which they were beyond saving, of at the weapons of the soldiers. His suspicions from the battlefield were confirmed; very many soldiers had picked up on the method to cut off the dying Minions' limbs, so they lost them forever and he couldn't get them back from the Well. His human soldiers didn't fare much better. The Overlord had dismounted to let Ruau thunder through the masses freely, and the hornbeast had succeeded in ruining two of the pillars supporting the Fountain so the chance of collapse had increased – if the people couldn't reach the water, at least the stream of mutants would stop. Sayron had been fighting back to back with Marcus Cassius for a while, the parrot-plumed centurion from Ignavopolis. After a while Sayron heard a gurgling sound, however, too close to his ear, and as he looked back he looked into white eyes beneath the familiar golden helmet. The Overlord swore and almost reflexively swung back his mace, so Marcus was flung back several yards. 

People were going to die here. People he'd grown fond of. 

If this didn't stop soon he wouldn't have any army left to storm the Palace with.

To the south of that, Fay fared a bit better. On the field of her Fountain, trees had sprouted by now, tropical trees with smooth, dark trunks and widely fanning crowns full of lianas and epiphytes. Blood dripped down over those trunks, both red and glowing blue, from the bodies and parts of them skewered on the branches of the trees and the foot-long thorns of the plants below them. Fay strode through her macabre forest, more or less at ease now. She was still panting slightly, and sparks buzzed around her fingers without control, but she'd gotten a hold of herself, at least more than during the brief, but intense slaughter that'd preceded the bloody forest's growth. 

Her people followed behind her, nervous, but still loyal to their queen. For the first time since long their elegant swords again dripped with human blood. 

As Fay reached the Fountain she outstretched a hand, almost carelessly, and the ground around it burst open to let through strangling vines, that wrapped themselves around the pillars and the source and ate through the marble as if it was loose sand. The mutating water only seemed to grant the vines more power. A moment later the whole structure collapsed and the well was unreachable, even more so as the stalks swiftly turned to wood and an elegant, but sinister tree with blue leaves started growing squarely atop the rubble. 

"One," the queen spoke. "To the Palace!"

The wings came along with a flood of green clouds, crazy laughter and frightening coughs, rattling and gurgling even where it wasn't coming from the mutants. The entire field around the Fountain being attacked by Jinx and Seffec turned into an image of madness. 

The wings cut through the air, seemingly unaffected by the fact they hadn't showed themselves for so long. Their owner didn't really have an idea of responsibility, even less so than his two brothers. And still the green flyer screeched down from the sky to a certain point, to pull up steeply as he'd reached it. In his elongated claws he carried a struggling brown Minion and a red parrot. 

Scabies, Stabbit's former rider, quickly stopped resisting, more out of pure bewilderment than anything else. His surprise grew as he realized the pain of his ruined eye faded, and the wetness covering half his face stopped running. And his surprise reached a climax as he caught a weak crawing through the howling of the wind. He looked to the side, and saw Duda in Stabbit's other claw – his red feathers sticky with blood, but alive and with clear eyes. The parrot shook up his feathers, blinked, and flew off cawing wildly as the flyer opened his claw. 

The green light that'd surrounded them, but which Scabies hadn't even noticed up to now, died away. And Stabbit flung him onto his back. 

Scabies blinked his one remaining eye, then grinned in determination and pulled down his bandana over one side of his face. He wasn't planning on following Quaver out of the horde.

A real pirate could fight just as well with just one eye.

On the ground the warriors weren't having such luck. The first clouds of gas had lifted, and both parties slowly came back to their senses – except for the ones who were dead, of course. It didn't take very long before the battle continued with its previous intensity. Again the mutants seemed to have the upper hand, but at least Stabbit was there now – he seemed to keep the group of still healthy people away from the Fountain, even though he probably just thought they were more fun of a prey. Some of them turned upon each other under the influences of the gas, others against the soldiers. All in all the green flyer was actually helping. 

Jinx was so busy following Stabbit's movements and the course of battle she didn't even realize she, as to mirror Sayron, came to stand back to back with someone else. As she did realize, a glance back revealed a messy black head of hair and blue eyes in a dark face. For a moment Jinx grimaced – she still felt an inexplicable hostility towards Seffec because of his declaration of love back in the Netherworld, even though she didn't understand exactly why herself. Then she suppressed those feelings. "Hi," she spoke, her voice rough and brusque because of the fight she was trying to win at the same time. The two were almost completely surrounded by soldiers and mutants. 

"_Bahi,_" the Ruborian answered, just as breathless as the horde leader. "You're doing good." 

"You think so? I dare to bet…" She paused to kick a mutant in the chest, so he fell backwards between the soldiers and wounded two of them with his claws, "…Fay and Sayron have already won their battles." 

"They'll come here if they have." 

"I don't want any help," Jinx growled. "I want to win this myself." 

Seffec separated the head of a soldier from his torso with one confident swipe. "I'm honoured I am allowed to fight by your side, Scourge." 

Jinx growled for a moment, but then managed a lopsided grin, even though Seffec couldn't see her face. That grin grew wider as she saw Stabbit swooping down – he seemed to be done with the healthy people, they had probably simply run out – and he now pulled a swathe of green gas in their direction. "Hold your breath," she called out, then she followed her own advice as the mutants and soldiers were again overcome with Stabbit's madness around them. 

As the clouds cleared she turned to Seffec with her hands covering her mouth. "Could you finish them? I'll try to get to the Fountain…" 

"Good luck!" 

As Jinx ran off and Seffec turned to the hapless enemy, with the help of several others of his people, he didn't see how a group of soldiers in black tunics hurried away through the restarting fight with cloths before their mouths.

Sayron may have lost Marcus, he had another lieutenant by his side; Kivner of Nordhaven.

The ginger northerner let arrow after arrow whirr from his crossbow, and he'd become a rather good archer by now. At both his sides a whole row of archers outstretched on the piles of rubble behind Sayron's army. 

They'd pulled a trail of destruction through Arcadiopolis, but they weren't getting through this just yet… 

Then green wings rose above the city. 

Sayron could look over the battle, tall and riding his hornbeast as he was, and he could clearly follow how Stabbit swept down into the north and let green gas stream out over the attack there. He didn't know where the other two flyers were. That was about to change, however. 

Not long after Stabbit had appeared he caught a glimpse of red and blue wings, higher up and partly concealed by the black clouds above the city, as much smoke as the mysterious darkness that'd come with them. The light of the fires behind them gleamed on the shining bombs in Fever's claws, and for a moment Sayron prayed the red flyer wouldn't put those to use, before he realized Fever was still a Minion and belonging to him. He hoped he'd never have to doubt that fact. 

His prayer seemed to have been heard, as Fever kept his distance. In his stead Goudvis sailed down, and it didn't take long before huge chunks of ice rained down upon the battlefield. Most of the soldiers stopped fighting or turned upon each other, but the mutants held on to their aggression to the Netherworld – Goudvis didn't seem to have any power over creatures without thinking powers. But where his icy mind didn't have a grip, the weapons of Sayron's men and Minions came in and were at their best. 

The mutants were still dangerous, and warriors were still perishing, but now they were no longer being supported by the soldiers the tide of battle seemed to have been turned. In many cases the soldiers under Goudvis' influence turned upon the mutants themselves. Sayron smiled – where Jinx had help from Stabbit, who influenced his victims in unpredictable ways, he was luckier. He'd rack his brain over the power and form of the three flyers later. Now he was simply glad they were on his side. 

Not that much later the Overlord finally succeeded in reaching the Fountain, and with a combination of devastating lightning and massive blows of his mace he brought down the rest of the pillars. Everything collapsed in a cloud of marble dust, and no one could reach the poisonous water anymore. 

The Overlord set his weapon across his shoulder and stared up at the Palace. The shield glistened in the last light. Not for much longer.

In the north Jinx swung through the battle time and time again, letting her magic fly at the Fountain over and over. Her purple comet hammered craters in the marble, and a few pillars had already collapsed, but she couldn't get her aim straight – all around her the battle still raged and she couldn't focus on the fight either. She swore wildly – in the northern fields her magic had ground catapult boulders to dust without that much effort, but in the midst of the hordes of mutants she couldn't aim and her lack of concentration also diminished the power of her purple balls of fire. The magic was just less strong as long as Minions mutated and died all around her, mutants flung drool and claws at her, and she had to be very athletic to simply stay alive. 

Slowly but surely, however, the Purple Scourge kept casting her magic over the enemy's heads, and Stabbit helped by releasing gas every now and then. And then, ultimately, the heart of the battle was shaken up by a great cracking of breaking and collapsing marble, and a cloud of dust spread as the Fountain gave way. The soldiers, insofar as they were still entirely there, seemed to lose their will to fight at once and many of them fled, probably to protect the last remaining Fountain now they still could. The mutants soon were the only ones left, and Stabbit's gas didn't really seem to influence them. But with the remaining Ruborians and Minions Jinx got most of the way, but at the end of the battle the horde leader was still so busy she almost missed the sudden, tortured screams. 

Jinx ended the attacks of the mutants before her with a swift series of blows and then hurried jumping and diving through the last skirmishes to the edge of the battle, where the screams were coming from. She soon saw what was happening. 

A few spear carriers in black tunics had come back, and because of the dark cloths covering their noses and mouths they had no trouble with the gas still floating around the borders of battle. The elite soldiers stabbed away at the warriors they could reach repeatedly, in a last attempt to avenge the loss of the Fountain and to prevent the last one from falling as well.

Quite a few Ruborians and Minions lay dead in the bloody, singed grass, but that wasn't even what made Jinx almost come to a halt. 

Three elite soldiers were standing in a rough circle some distance away, and as she looked on a fourth joined them. All of them stabbed away at a single figure. Here was the origin of the loudest screams. 

It was Seffec, and he was impaled upon all four of the spears. They pierced his chest, arms, side and lower back, and they kept him standing. As Jinx sprinted towards them, purple fire in the palms of her hands, the soldiers dug the backs of their weapons into the ground and ran off. The horde leader got ready to go after them, but something made her turn and walk back to Seffec. 

He was still alive, but it wouldn't be long now. The blues were busy in the fight and wouldn't come in time even if Jinx went to get them. 

"Seffec…" 

"It was… an honour." The Ruborian didn't open his eyes. His head hung back, his black hair fell down his back. For a moment every muscle of his body tensed and he clenched his fists; then his hands fell limply along his body, and all was over. 

Jinx stared at the impaled body, as the fire in her hands faded. Seffec. 

Strangely enough she could, despite everything, realize he was only one soldier, and she herself could easily take over the command of the Ruborians until a new leader arose. She glanced back. The fight for the Fountain was decided, the last mutants were being put down, Stabbit wheeled through the sky in triumph and pulled green lines of smoke through the black clouds. 

It was a lot easier to lose Seffec than all those mutated Minions she'd never see again. For a moment she clenched her own fists, her head low and her jaws tense. She would make the Emperor pay for this… 

Then familiar voices reached her ears, and she looked up. Amidst a whole horde of Minions a duo of reds stormed her way, one of them sporting a metal hook for an arm, accompanied by a green wearing a blue sock, but the one running the fastest wore a silken hat and gripped his jagged dagger raised up high. 

Jinx smiled and wiped some blood off her arms. Of course they could go on. They could always go on. 

It didn't take too long before the three parties had found each other again, in the broad, but abandoned streets in the heart of the city. Sayron, Fay and Jinx were all covered in blood and soot, and they seemed slightly exhausted. Sayron still had the Tower Heart with him, however, and the power within it seemed to have been restored somewhat. A small dose of it made sure they could all stand up straight again. 

"I've lost Seffec, Lord," Jinx spoke briefly after that.

The Overlord turned to her and grimaced. "Well, I've lost Marcus. We'll make it." 

"There's no doubt of that," Fay merged into it. "They're so weak, even without our magic we could deal with the Emperor." 

"Let's hope so," Sayron started. "I…" 

Something cut him off. Something made his eyes pale from orange to yellow. That something was a blue flame, but if Marius would have been in it, he wouldn't have reacted this way. 

It wasn't Marius in that flame. It was a figure in a dark Sentinel cloak, but beneath the hood were no overlarge, gleaming nacre eyes. Beneath the hood sharp grey eyes vigilantly looked out into the world, eyes of the same colour as Velvet's – the eyes of the Sentinels' leader.

The eyes of Rose. 

"I must speak with you," a calm, serious voice resounded, a voice, to Jinx, resembling her mother's, but so much less cheery and familiar – the voice of the one partly responsible for her execution in the river. A voice that'd resounded in the Netherworld just prior to the very first journey to the Wasteland. A voice resonating to Sayron's very core. The Overlord seemed frozen. 

_"Why, it's our friendly local cloaked stranger!"_ Gnarl didn't seem as upset, and his creaky voice sounded amused as always. 

"Oh do shut up, Gnarl." 

The advisor chuckled. _"I recognized that voice from the beginning, you know… we've known it was you for some time now, former Mistress Rose. Or Mrs Marius now, I should say!"_ Now an accusing tone crept into Gnarl's voice. _"Needless to say you shouldn't trust her, Sire, she's a devious, manipulative abandoner… The one who took you away from us and left you in that festering town!"  
><em> 

Rose threw back her heavy hood, seemingly unaffected by Gnarl's words. "I knew what you would become, the power within you. The Empire had to be given a chance to bring a little order and discipline to these lands. I thought that Solarius was going to be a decent ruler. But power… it always corrupts…" 

_"Ha!"_ Gnarl exclaimed. _"That's half the fun! You can't keep evil down!"  
><em> 

"Now he's just a hideous weed… choking the land he set out to rebuild. A weed that needs to be cut down! Ripped out! I should have known the cycle can't be stopped." She looked up. "I have to go, I'm needed in the Palace." 

Sayron's eyes widened. "No…!" He stepped forward, but too late. A blue flame flared, blinding him, and when he could see again, Rose was gone. 

_"Wretched wench! As if she didn't do enough damage keeping you away from your Minions and your birthright!"_ Gnarl grumbled on for a while. His contempt for Rose appeared to go deep. Sayron, however, kept looking at the spot she'd disappeared – his mother. He seemed to smile. It wasn't certain with the cloth before his mouth, but her words seemed to have struck a chord. _Order and discipline to these lands… a decent ruler._

He stared up at the Palace again, so close now. "Come on," he spoke. One more Fountain to go. Let's end this."

**(PALACE COURTYARD)**

In the heart of the city the Palace and the Arena rose up, dominating Arcadiopolis from up high. From the majestic building's balconies, it was quite clear what devastation had been dealt to the city – the entire northern quarter was a mass of smoke plumes, fires and the debris of buildings. Here and there bodies in white togas or rough slaves' clothes, lying on the roofs, were even visible from the seat of power itself. 

The Emperor was nowhere to be seen on the balconies. There were people, however – mostly the highest nobles and quite a lot of soldiers, most of them in black tunics. Some of them were already bloodied; these were the survivors of earlier battles for the Fountains and before that. All of them seemed unshaken. The soldiers of lower calibre, wearing green or blue, did start panicking at the sight of the survivors and the sound of their reports to the centurions. 

All conversation faltered, however, as a blue flame went up in their midst and lord Marius stepped forward, to look out over the inner courtyard, the palace gardens themselves. 

The gardens were full of people, more even than with the other Fountains. These were the last evacuees from the north of the city, gathered here as the Overlord was still busy in the northern fields. They probably thought the Emperor had saved them, but Marius knew their true purpose. Mutants didn't think, but they were more fierce and stubborn than normal soldiers. 

It didn't seem as if the other three groups had stopped the Overlord, however. He'd almost felt the faltering of the sick magic, and he now saw how new plumes of smoke rose from the inner parts of the city, increasingly close to the Palace. 

He didn't worry. Sayron of the Netherworld was no match for his Emperor. 

The explosions were clearly audible now. And through the smoke the Speaker saw the red, green and blue wings every now and then, the wings of the dragon-like creatures that'd come with the Overlord, the most powerful demons of his army. Those three had been a surprise, and so was the return of the giant bat – it wouldn't surprise him if it'd turn out to be Ripped Wing, the bat that'd escaped the Arena months ago. That bat also circled over Arcadiopolis, but couldn't do much from the air and now mostly tried not to be hit. Most of the time, however, he was concealed in smoke, so there really was no way to deal with him from ground level, to Marius' disappointment. 

He'd positioned bomb throwers and some Gargantuans on the higher ground, but it didn't surprise him Sayron managed to break through those as well, even though he and his army were weary after the Fountains. That weariness alone was good enough for Marius. They had to be weary and tired as they came to stand before the Emperor. Tired people knelt so much easier.

**(STREETS)**

"Heal me!" 

From up on his frog the blue grinned down on the brown Minion. "We're in a hurry, Cleft…" 

Cleft supported his almost-severed, dangling arm and tried to shake his fist at the same time, but didn't succeed. "Slimy…" 

"Come here," another blue spoke. "Eel, behave."

The new one took Cleft's shoulder in his hands and healed the wound at once. Bone creaked, muscle reattached, and Cleft could shake his fist again. Then he turned to his healer. "Thank, Trickle." 

"No problem," the blue smiled. Eel grinned and bounced away on his frog, through the wreckage of the previous fight. 

All around Minions were being healed in an unofficial breather. They needed it. A few minutes ago they'd been very much wrapped up in a struggle with too many Gargantuans and even a few Eradicators with their anti-magic cannons. Even Ruau had broken a few bones, and five blues currently finished that heavy healing. Sayron straightened one of the spikes on his helmet after a collision with a torn-off, heavy piece of armour from the Imperial mountains of flesh that'd almost broken his neck upon impact with his head. Kivner stood right next to the hornbeast and loaded a few bolts back into his crossbow, his red hair caked with dried blood, from a head wound of his own and of others. Jinx stanched the wounds of two Minions until the blues got to healing them. Scabies had dismounted from Stabbit's back again and assisted her, his black bandana still functioning as an eye patch for the wrecked half of his face. 

A little bit further a fat blue ran through the army, handing out stuffed dormouse and bits of chicken he'd probably swiped from the surrounding villas – no one knew where Thud would get all his food from otherwise. It was very welcome, however. 

A little later, when everyone could stand up on their own again, the army advanced further.

A few broad, sloping streets followed, completely devoid of life as if someone was expecting them… and then it became clear where they were being expected. 

The gate leading to the Palace courtyard was opened wide. Beyond lay Emperor Solarius' magnificent gardens, all fanning trees, multi-coloured flowerbeds and walkways even now seeming to be bathing in sunlight, or perhaps radiating it themselves. A large part of it was blotted out by the people in the inner court, but not the Fountain; though it stood squarely between the people, almost hugging the palace wall, it rose up tall above the crowd. 

As Sayron spurred on Ruau and loped into the courtyard, seemingly quite at ease, those people were almost as startled as the Overlord's followers. Jinx and Fay ran after him immediately, Minions, men and elves in their wake. 

Jinx quickly caught sight of the skinny, brown-haired figure standing on the Imperial balcony. Marius was looking at Sayron, not her, but still she jolted. Then white-hot fury immediately flowed through her again. She remembered the humiliation in Drearius' villa, as she'd been forced to wash his feet, and his hands whenever he outstretched them to her.

_I'll chop those hands off before I kill him._ Marius was hers. The right to kill him was hers, after everything he'd done to her, before she'd entered the Netherworld and after. 

She rolled off her ropes and got ready to fling them over the crowd at the spot where the people backed away from her and the Minions, to climb the balcony and begin her slaughter there. It wouldn't do to wait until the Fountain was used, she wanted to have her death count going as soon as possible. 

She came close enough to feel the influence of the shield, but before she could hook on to the marble palace wall she felt something else as well. A burning, devouring pain, a pain she knew, a pain that could only be caused by one thing. 

Sentinels. Of course. They still had a few. 

Next to Marius two of the hooded figures stepped into sight, and as Jinx staggered back she realized she knew these two; it were the two who'd taken out her, Sayron and the others before they'd been thrown into the Arena. The misshapen, hunched ones, with fingers of mismatching length and asymmetrical heads beneath the hoods of their dark cloaks. Dozens of others joined the first two. 

"Solarius will be most amused at your perseverance, barbarian," Marius spoke with his amplified voice. He slightly bent sideways to dodge the few arrows the Minion archers managed to fire through their pain, but he didn't make an effort to move away from the reds' fireballs – those wouldn't even come through the shield he was hiding behind. A little later almost all the Netherworld's archers were distracted by the soldiers now streaming at them from every corner of the gardens. 

The Netherworld did have an answer, however. As if he'd been awaiting this moment, the yeti finally thundered through the courtyard's gate, flinging away soldiers to all sides, and despite his violence he kept his one yellow eye fixed on Marius most of the time, as if he remembered who was the ultimate master of the Arena games. Marius seemed to remember how he'd deployed the beast as a final way of dealing with Sayron, and he backed away slightly. 

Then a high-pitched screech echoed off the palace, and wide brown wings swooped down from the smoke. Ivory claws grabbled over the courtyard and plucked away handfuls of soldiers, to drop them from up too high. Zephyros even dared making an almost vertical flight along the balcony, and he managed to drag away three Sentinels. As he soared away Drip immediately healed all the holes the arrows had made in the webbing of his wings. 

Now the Sentinels had something else to worry about, the main part of Sayron's army was freed of their influence. The battle begun in earnest, closer and closer to the civilians, and Marius looked down huntedly. "Citizens! We may have an enemy in our midst, but I urge you all to keep calm. For we are standing on the brink of a new dawn: the birth of a new divinity!" 

Sayron looked up from Ruau's back, a frown on his blood-splattered face. What was Marius talking about? 

"The demon foe we face today may seem overwhelming, but I assure you citizens that he can be beaten. Solarius will show you the way!" Marius' voice swelled with pride, and he bent over the balcony further. The people below him stared up, clearly hanging on his every word, even though Sayron's army was barely ten feet away from them. "And now you must all drink, drink of the blessed Nectar of Solarius! Drink and let it cleanse your fears. Drink and be reborn!" 

The people turned away from him as one, and towards the Fountain in their midst. Their fear seemed to vanish, as if Marius was controlling them in the same way Goudvis would have, or Sayron with his domination magic. They stepped towards the water and drank. 

As the mutants threw themselves through the ranks of soldiers, it was with more violence and rage than Sayron had ever seen before.

It was an incredibly chaotic battle. There were more civilians here than at the other three Fountains put together, and the water of this source seemed to be a lot more aggressive as well; perhaps there was a well of sick magic in the Palace, taken from the Wasteland as the Empire had also done with the one shard of the Tower Heart with which they'd created the lenses for the Sentinels. But there were fewer soldiers here, and Sayron's army had been able to rest and eat before this. The Tower Heart, too, had been recharged slightly, and the warriors could return to it every now and then to refuel themselves. 

In the first few moments of battle a lot of warriors fell, and again the dying Minions were often rendered helpless by cutting off their limbs. But then Sayron entered the fray, and Fay, and Jinx. The three parties who'd each taken out a Fountain by themselves had been united now, and after the first chaos the battle quickly started turning over to their fortune.

The mutants perished on all sides, Marius and the nobles on the balcony stared down in growing panic, and as the three pairs of wings of the Unholy Minions appeared from the smoke, the Speaker's eyes almost bulged from their sockets. 

Despite their losses and their exhaustion, mainly the Minions fought harder than ever before. At one moment Jinx came standing at the edge of their group, and for the first time since the northern fields she saw Kniff do battle. Her friend was almost unrecognizable.

Dried blood covered his face like war paint, his eyes were wild, all his teeth were bared and his ears lay back flatly. He flung around his dagger as if it was a sword, and in the way he held the weapon it was more formidable than the much longer blades of some of the Ruborians. As she let her own sword fly, Jinx turned away from him again, a smile on her face, and she realized the small brown Minion had grown, since Nordberg, since Everlight, since the Wasteland. He wasn't a newborn any longer. He wasn't weak. He'd grown – they'd grown _together_, and now they were strong. Strong enough to defeat the Empire. Strong enough to write history together… 

A great cracking went up from the courtyard. Jinx spun around and stared over the battle, at the Fountain. 

There, past a few bloodied trees Fay had summoned, the marble construction gave way. A deep sigh coursed through the nobles on the balcony, and the fighting soldiers seemed to falter as well. 

_"That's it! That's it!"_ Gnarl shouted out in triumph. _"Now head for the Palace and bring down Solarius! Before he tries to terrify us with his stony silence and that golden tiara of his!" _The advisor choked with laughter, giddy with the joy of war. _"We're almost there, Sire!"_

Sayron crushed a whole line of soldiers with a number of blows and stormed for the palace wall. For a moment he stared up at Marius, then he got ready to ram the huge sculptured gates. 

A tremor coursed through the ground, but it wasn't Sayron, and it wasn't Omari's sand worm either. 

"You're not tired enough, barbarian," Marius spoke in an icy voice. For a moment Sayron's blood chilled seeing the gaze behind the gleaming monocle. The Overlord turned. 

There, past the dust and the wreckage, forms loomed up from outside of the courtyard. Enormous forms… familiar silhouettes growing increasingly clear with every step they took.  
>A long line of Gargantuans. Just as with the Sentinels, they'd kept a lot of them on hand.<p>

Sayron clenched his jaws, getting ready for a last exertion… 

Then he saw the silhouettes didn't quite match the Gargantuans he was used to. These colossi carried something spherical on their backs… 

Bombs. 

These Gargantuans were bomb carriers. They'd been equipped with the projectiles normally used for catapults. 

"Oh, no," the Overlord muttered. 

"Oh, yes," Marius smiled. 

Then the monstrous half-men stormed forward, bent over, their massive arms pumping like pistons, their heavy feet thundering on the marble walkways, towards them. And all of a sudden, everything happened very fast. 

The first bombs already kindled, in a blooming of blinding light and scorching heat, as something just as huge as the Gargantuans themselves suddenly threw itself before Sayron and the army. Huge arms were spread, a single yellow eye looked back one last time… 

Three giant forms plummeted down from the sky, and sun-eclipsing wings flung themselves open to shield the warriors of the Netherworld. Three voices screeched as one as the explosion reached its climax, and three pairs of wings shone in red, green and blue as they let the light through, too intense to look at. In a roar rolling over the city walls miles away, earth and marble and bodies sprayed up into the air, and the shock wave was enough to whack even Sayron unconscious. 

"_Ankhwoo…_"

Descending ashes. 

There was no sound. There was almost no light. It was dark, so dark compared with just a moment ago, and it was so silent… 

_Kniff?_

No sound. She didn't hear herself. 

_Zephyros?_

Did she even have a voice left, or was she only made of pure thought? 

Then a shadow appeared in her field of vision, darker than the sky at which she was staring up, and she noticed it was lighter than she'd realized just now. Her sight returned slowly, and as the massive figure hoisted her to her feet and she realized he was talking to her in a deep voice, so did her hearing. Maybe her eardrums were healing themselves. That was useful… 

"Jinx!" 

She came to her senses. "Lord. I'm sorry. What did you say?" 

Sayron looked up at the Palace, and Jinx followed his gaze. 

The marble walls were almost completely blackened, and in many places they'd cracked with the heat, but the majestic building didn't seem to be collapsing anytime soon. The magical shield was still intact as well. The balconies were empty – Marius and the nobles were probably far away now. 

Then the Purple Scourge looked the other way. 

The courtyard was a wreckage. The ground had been churned up completely, the marble walls separating the gardens from uptown lay shattered everywhere, barely ten feet away small fires flickered everywhere and there were also bodies everywhere. There were a lot of survivors as well, however, enough to make up a small army yet. 

Minions scrambled up from the ashes all around, like corpses from their graves. Jinx ran towards them and immediately started helping them up and inspecting their wounds. This soon after their last pause they were in need of another one already, and the blues worked overtime once more. 

Reds hurried towards the fires to put them out before they reached unconscious survivors. The sand worm dug itself out of the ground as gently as it could and covered the larger fires with so much earth and sand in one go they were extinguished at once. 

They'd survived. 

A few blues took to the healing of a large black spider under threat of a green Minion, the mount's abdomen being ripped open by flying debris. Her legs jolted, outstretched, and she came back to life with trembling fangs. 

They'd survived the last assault Marius had thrown at them. 

Hoarse dug buried members of his clan from the ash one after the other, and a little further away Soaker gathered dead and wounded in his frog's mouth, to carry them to the rest of the blues. 

The Unholy Minions were nowhere to be seen. They'd vanished, wiped away by the explosion they'd thrown themselves in front of. There weren't even any bodies. They'd disappeared just as abruptly as they'd appeared in the sky. The Netherworld would have to make do without their mighty influence from now on… 

The only thing Sayron found of the yeti after searching for a while was an enormous hand with a leathery, singed skin and ragged nails. The beast from the Nordbergian mountains was dead at last, died in a last attempt to protect the one who'd possibly freed him from a cage thirteen years ago from Marius' last attack. 

The Palace lay open before them. 

As Sayron had finally gathered his troops it didn't take long before he'd opened the gate with the combined help of Jinx, Fay and Omari. The shield flickered and shone, and as they stepped through the magically gifted shivered briefly as their powers melted away. There was nothing they could do about it. 

Finally, ultimately, they'd reached the final part of their conquest.

**(PALACE/INNER CHAMBER)**

In the heart of the Palace, in the dark, fire-lit throne room, Marius stood before the throne, his hands folded crampedly. 

"They're inside, my Lord." His voice quivered with excitement. 

The Emperor rose from his seat of power. A strangely hoarse voice chuckled softly. "Let them come," Solarius spoke. "Let them come." He stepped forward and walked past Marius. "Soon I'll be more than too much for them…" 

"I can barely wait, my Lord," Marius whispered.

**(PALACE)**

There was a very ominous atmosphere around the remains of Sayron's army as they walked through the Imperial Palace. The dark clouds above the city had packed closer together than ever, and it was strangely gloomy between the enormous pillars – so different from the last time they'd been here that at first the Overlord didn't even realize this was the place where he'd clambered out of the sewers when he'd been chasing the blue Hive. 

Their magic had been extinguished completely, so no one could summon a light, not even the red Minions. Some young reds whimpered softly; it was very unpleasant for them to have no control over fire whatsoever, and Jinx wondered whether they could even survive for longer time spans without magic. The greens were hissing almost continuously and tried to blend into the shadows, but didn't manage now they were forced to remain visible. The horde leader herself was reminded of the time before she discovered her magic. She'd managed just fine then, she could do so again… 

Then Sayron remained standing. He raised a fist and dismounted. "We can expect opposition at any moment," he spoke softly. "Wait here. Jinx, step forward." 

Surprised, Jinx stepped towards him. The Overlord kept walking silently, away from his waiting followers, until they reached a dark, silent side corridor together. There Sayron kept standing, and gestured for Jinx to come closer. He lay a hand on her shoulder, which surprised Jinx even more – the Overlord might just as well have sprouted two heads, that would have shocked her less than this sudden familiarity. Why now? They couldn't afford any delays… 

"Jinx, what I'm about to tell you is meant for your ears only." 

She looked up into this flaming eyes. "My Lord?" she asked hesitantly. 

"My horde leader," Sayron smiled, his eyes rippling. "I've never really expressed it, but I trust you as much as I do Gnarl – sometimes more. That's why you're the first to hear this. We don't have much time… Jinx, when I defeat the Emperor and take his place, I will do so completely. The throne of the Empire will be the only one I will sit upon." 

It took a while before the full meaning of this statement had sunk in with Jinx, and as that happened, she was rendered speechless. She stared at Sayron with wide eyes. For a moment she thought she could hear something else gasp for breath, close to Sayron's helmet. 

"I'm going to leave the Netherworld, Jinx. And I want to ask you to come with me. You've been invaluable to me." 

"L-Lord. The Minions…" 

"My adventure with the Minions is over. It started thirteen years ago, they've supported me and served me magnificently, but they've almost helped me get what I want – my destiny. I'm almost done with them." Sayron paused. "In the past, Overlords have always fallen before they could let go of the Minions. I don't intend to follow their examples." 

"Sayron…" 

"Will you come with me, Jinx? Will you come with me to rebuild the Empire in our image, at my side?" 

Jinx opened her mouth, but before she could speak, another voice resounded. 

"It's you, Scourge of Nature!" 

The voice rang out through the abandoned halls and echoed off the tall pillars. Sayron and Jinx looked up as one. 

There, on a walkway crossing the hall high above their heads, a green and golden figure crouched on the balustrade. Fluttering blond hair, leaf-green eyes. 

"Florian?" Jinx uttered incredulously. "But you were caught in the Wasteland! You died in the Arena!" 

"I escaped the Arena dungeons, with the aid of a helpful fairy," the elf replied with a haughty glance down to them. He looked up. His loud voice had attracted the rest of Sayron's followers. 

At the same time Gnarl's voice resounded. _"Damn, thought we'd got rid of that tree hugger."_ He sounded a little more hoarse than normal, but Sayron didn't seem to notice. 

"I know where Solarius is, and I'm going to find him, Scourge. He'll be a very different man when I've finished with him!" Florian straightened out on the balustrade. "Let's bring this to an end, you and me, Scourge! You do the whole smash things up bit and I'll back you up with inspirational monologues…" 

_"He's going to whinge at Solarius until he kills himself?"_ Gnarl mused softly to himself. _"Hmm, could work…"_

Then the elf leapt away, and the Overlord and his followers were forced to run after him, deeper into the darkened Palace. 

Somewhere in the heart of it, Solarius' gathered magic sparkled and burned. Sayron was running straight towards it.

**General: So you're telling me, in the space of one chapter we lost Marcus, the yeti, the three Unholy Minions, and now our glorious Overlord is going to resign as Overlord and become Emperor… with you at his side?**

**Jinx: I'm as surprised as you are.**

**General: But.. but… the Minions, the evilness, the magic, what happens to it all?**

**Jinx I don't know alright! But for now we have to focus on killing Solarius**

**General: And we've got that imbecile Florian back… at least we can kill him finally.**

**Jinx: You can have him… I want Marius.**

**Jinx and General Herbison shake hands.**

**General: It has been a pleasure serving with you.**

**Jinx: For an annoying uptight British tea loving human you're not so bad.**

**General: Awh, you're so sweet. Please review readers.**


	39. That Darkness Would Be Us

**General Herbison: Alright, disclaimer time. I do not own this story it belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart as do her OCs.**

**Jinx: Finally, the palace. This battle is almost over.**

**General: Indeed my dear. When the Emperor is dead then I'll propose to you.**

**Jinx: What?**

**General: I said when the Emperor is dead my forces will begin rebuilding the city.**

**Jinx: Oh… okay then.**

**General: Righto then, onwards to victory!**

**That Darkness Would Be Us**

The sound of countless running footsteps accompanied the Overlord and his followers as they hurried through the darkened passages and halls of the Imperial Palace. Mainly the loud metal rattle of Sayron's armour and the thunder of Ruau's hooves made a lot of noise, but that didn't concern the Overlord. They were so close now, they could survive everything that was still to come. Here at the end of the adventure, the worst almost had to be already over. Sayron could barely believe the time had finally come…

Then the elf darting along the walls and sculptures ahead of them started talking, his voice barely influenced by his tiring method of movement.

"If only I'd been magical, Scourge. It could have been a very different story. Elves are meant to be magical, you know. But I couldn't even make a weed grow." Florian sighed. "All the other magical creatures mocked me, teased me."

"Ah yes, I knew he was useless," Gnarl chuckled. "His sister told me, Sire. Wasn't much of a surprise."

Not far from Sayron, Fay laughed. "I regret nothing, little brother. Look at me!"

But Florian didn't react to her. He looked ahead, at something only his eyes could discern in the gloom. "Soldiers, Scourge!"

Indeed, from the gloom black tunics and glistening spears appeared. Their own footsteps were drowned out by those of sandals to marble.

Sayron's army quickly drew its weapons. The red and blue Minions gathered at the back of the horde – without any magic they were very vulnerable. The greens only seemed to grow more aggressive by their inability to turn invisible and some of them already sprinted forward, to throw themselves onto the heads and shoulders of the soldiers with mighty leaps. Helmets were torn off, eyes clawed out. Now there was screaming, but the black tunics handled their weapons well and even now Minions were flung away and skewered on all sides.

Then Ruau thundered through the group. Not all soldiers managed to jump away in time, and the hornbeast left behind a trail of blood and broken bodies.

Jinx ran after the beast to clean up the survivors, but then noticed Florian was already jumping on. "Of course," she panted. "We're in a hurry. The Emperor is still gathering magic…" She pointed upwards. "Lord!"

Sayron followed her finger from Ruau's back. "Follow Florian!" he called out. "Don't kill everyone, speed is the key here!"

And they ran on, after their guide, as some tried to shake off the feeling of déjà vu – this resembled the Wasteland far too much, running after Florian through the dark.

To Jinx' great surprise, their guide continued talking. "I'd hoped your predecessor's Tower Heart would unleash my potential, Scourge. Which is why I tried to steal it, all those years ago." Florian's face wasn't visible, and his voice betrayed no emotion at all. "How was I to know it would become unstable and slightly explode?"

A couple of fire bowls lit their path with their flickering light – but it really only enlarged the shadows. Gnarl uttered a choked sound. _"So Florian caused the Cataclysm?!_ _Stupid, bumbling elf!_"

"Then people started to fear magic," the elf continued, unphased by Gnarl's clearly audible eruption. Sayron, Jinx and a whole lot of others now listened to his life story more intently. "And along came Solarius, and he just rose on a tide of their hatred and paranoia. And he built the Glorious Empire, and they let him cleanse all the magical creatures he wanted to!" Here something changed in Florian's tone, and Jinx felt a sting of discomfort – there was something off here. All of a sudden, something was terribly _wrong_.

That was the moment the elf disappeared out of sight on another walkway close to the ceiling, jumping away to a higher floor.

Behind them the voices of the soldiers resounded. Sayron looked around huntedly. "There!" He gestured to a doorway leading approximately the right way, and Ruau put himself in motion again. The rest followed.

What came next was an increasingly rich decoration of the marble halls. White marble was replaced by red carpets, magnificent sculptures and inner gardens filled with palm trees and orchids. The floors were smooth and polished, only encouraging Thud to throw his sauce grenades at them.

And then, so sudden Sayron didn't even notice it at first, they reached their goal. Behind widely opened, enormous hardwood doors lay the fire lit throne room, with an empty throne, surrounded by palm leaves. There was someone standing beside the seat of power, however.

Sayron, Jinx and Fay stared into the hall at the head of the small army, straight into the eyes of the skinny figure in the white toga. That figure grinned back. Then Marius turned to the throne.

It wasn't empty, Jinx realized. There was something on the seat; a golden mask, designed to cover the top of the face.

A mask…

Was that why Solarius' eyes had seemed so dark and expressionless? Had they ever really seen his face at all…?

Then a horrible pain shredded that train of thought, and Jinx fell to her knees with a scream. Next to her Sayron and Fay followed, having the air beaten from their lungs as well. A tear-filled glance upwards revealed Sentinels on a hidden balcony above the hall.

Marius raised up his arms. "Everything is prepared for the ascension! People will talk about this day, in whispers and…"

A figure silently landed behind Marius. Sayron widened his eyes as he realized it was Florian.  
>"Oh, do shut up, Marius!"<p>

The Speaker for the Emperor turned around. For just a few moments everything seemed frozen, those few pained moments, when everything was still possible.

Then the brown-haired man in the toga bowed deeply. "Sorry, Lord."

_Lord._

Lord?!

"Florian!" the Overlord roared.

The elf leisurely strolled around the throne and took up the golden mask from the seat. Then he put it on. "Come on, Marius, anyone would think _you_ were about to take over the world." He chuckled briefly. His face was that of Solarius, eyes overshadowed by the mask. "Shall we continue? I assure you, your complete and total annihilation is just around the corner."

Sayron clenched his fists, but under the blood-red flood of anti-magic there wasn't much he could do.

"As you can see, Florian still has his uses. Helping me play with your little barbarian head, for one, Demon Lord. And by maintaining him I could bring the Sanctuaries down from the inside piece by piece, sister! Ah, I really hope that piece of delicious irony isn't lost on you?" The elf laughed, and there was a hint of madness to his voice. Fay groaned, her eyes flaring with rage, but that only caused a new Sentinel to join the others on the balcony to restrain her.

"I collected the magic here. Of course, I sampled a little before this. Took what was _mine!_ All those years of cleansing and killing magical creatures, they never saw it coming! But now they will all be reborn in me! As I rise from elf, to Emperor, to _god!_" Florian turned around, his cloak fluttering, and spread his hand to the floor in the centre of the throne room. "Bring up the Vat!"

Before the powerless eyes of Sayron, Jinx and Fay the centre of the floor rolled open. Immediately a brilliant blue glow shone up to the ceiling, bathing the entire throne room in a ghostly light which drowned out the flames. A buzz like that of thousands of flies accompanied the light.

Then a huge form rose up from the marble. A large, round object, decorated with engraved copper and silver shapes, at least three meters in diameter, rising up higher and higher until it was elevated from the floor to Sayron's shoulder height.

"Behold the birth of your new god," Florian spoke, his eyes glistening behind the mask as he climbed the edge of the Vat and looked down upon Sayron and his followers from that height.

And then everything suddenly happened very fast.

The blue glow from the Vat started to peak and flash irregularly. At the same time a tremor coursed through the ground. At the moment a bolt freed itself from the trapped magic the tremor travelled to the walls, and eventually to the roof…

Then a part of that roof was ripped away, so the people in the Palace had free sight on the dark, clouded sky… and a huge, round maw filled with teeth. Omari's sand worm bent over the Palace as chunks of debris rained down into the throne room.

Then the blue bolt flashed up, to Florian, straight through him, and towards the gigantic sand worm.

Compared to what followed, the tremors of the sand worm had been a calm breeze.

The throne room shook on its foundations as thunder roared through the sky, and this time Sayron had nothing to do with it. Sentinels fell from their balconies to the left and right, and their lights fell off the Overlord's army. Jinx and Fay rolled away from new debris, but Sayron realized he could use his magic again at the moment he instinctively raised his hand and splintered a falling chunk of marble apart. The shield around the Palace had been lifted. The magic was gone.

…The magic was inside Florian.

A terrible scream still resounded, somewhere in the sky, reaching them through the giant crumbling hole in the roof through which the wind and thunder rolled in.

One last tremor made that hole break through to the walls, so they had free sight on the streets and squares around the Palace, and new screams reached them.

_Power_.

Power like he'd never known it before.

It flowed through him, through his body, into his limbs, like liquid fire changing him, melting him down, making him new. Reforming him. Forging him together with something else…

There was magic, more than ever. More than even his sister had ever had. This was his birthright! No longer an outcast, but the king he should always have been! And not just the king of his own people… the king, the Emperor, of the _world._

But there was something else.

Fierceness, memories of white-hot sand and endless parchment skies. Outstretched tunnels beneath a bone-dry desert… Prey at the surface…

Yes. The world was his prey!

Florian's mind writhed and convulsed as he was joined together with that other, savage creature, the Lord of Sands with the thousand teeth…

Sayron's army ran out of the Palace at varying speeds, back into the city. What they encountered was reason for concern.

The city was dark, with a strange hint of a red glow from the gathered clouds. There were people outside, but their eyes were filled with fear, though none of them looked at Sayron.

They were staring the other way, away from the Palace, into town.

The streets were covered with pools of blue-glowing ooze.

"No," Jinx muttered. "Not again. Not here…"

She caught Sayron's gaze, and she briefly thought back to what he'd revealed to her, there in the Palace's first hall. This was his last act as an Overlord. He'd leave the Netherworld and the Minions, without leadership, without conquered land… without a Dark Domain.

Would she help him? Would she follow him? Would she grasp her chance of a high position in the Glorious Empire?

As the Purple Scourge ran through the torn, ooze-covered streets as fast as she could she involuntarily grimaced with fury and disgust. The Empire embodied everything she hated. It had trampled her, taken her mother from her and thrown her into the sewers all alone. It had cut away Zephyros' wings. It had kept the blues captive and tortured them for years. It didn't really matter to her what they'd done to the people anymore, though that wasn't much better either.

Even more importantly, the Glorious Empire had turned out to be the cause of the Wasteland she hated so passionately. The Empire had taken Stripe, Gloob, Jagged and Parch from her.

In the Wasteland she'd desperately wished she could look her enemy in the eye.

Now she could. Those eyes were the masked, overshadowed eyes of Florian Greenheart.

Wouldn't it be the ultimate victory over all her enemies, fears and humiliations if she conquered the Empire herself, at Sayron's side? Weren't the Minions really a tool in her own personal battle?

Wasn't Sayron right?

And yet…

_I am a Minion._

She'd never be able to bear the look in Kniff's eyes.

The Minions were a part of her, and of the reason she hated the Empire. But she couldn't ignore Sayron's will, not even now.

Then they reached an open square beneath the strangely red-tinged sky, with small groups of gathered people along the walls of the surrounding houses. People with mortal fear in their eyes, staring up at the sky or looking around at the houses with hunted looks…

A tremor coursed through the soil.

And all Jinx' ponderings melted away in the light of the thing which then broke through the houses.

Enormous, terrible and with a sickly pink skin reminding her irrevocably of Parch, the organic mass slumped down on the square. Everywhere on the monstrous body bluish, pulsating pustules stood out. Writhing tentacles sprouted in the most illogical places. The head was vaguely recognizable as that of the once proud, fierce sand worm, with a round mouth now filled with irregular, jagged teeth, but the beast had eyes now – a ring of them, on convulsing stalks, spinning uncontrolled and of differing sizes. More and more were turned towards Sayron's small army.

Then something else appeared, descending from the sky, wheezing like a dying man.

It was Florian, but not as they'd last seen him. The Emperor indeed was a changed man, just like the elf had said.

_"That magic energy didn't take kindly to its new host,"_ Gnarl muttered to Sayron.

Everything on Florian had become part of his body.

Just as with the sand worm the elf's skin was sickly pink now, flecked with glowing blue. But that skin now stretched over his long hat and his hair, which had become part of his head, convulsing like the beast's tentacles. His fluttering cloak of leaves now was a veined, ragged flap of skin. His sword had melted into his hand, as an elongated spike of bone and tendons. The golden mask, too, had melted to his face, so the skin around his eyes and nose was strangely puffed up and his eyes had sunken away deeply.

The Emperor descended to the mutated sand worm, which reared up and slightly bent forward. A terrible, pained scream blared from the round, dripping mouth.

Then Florian landed on the beast's neck and spontaneously connated with the sand worm through a few fibry tendons. His hands and knees sunk away into the pinkish flesh. And the beast threw itself in the direction of Sayron's army.

The Overlord immediately staggered back. Blue, mutating ooze gushed from the beast's every pore, and Sayron wasn't planning to touch it. The blues, however, jumped forward and cleared it away up to the pinkish skin, so the rest of the horde could reach it. Swords and daggers sunk away into the spongy flesh, but there was no blood or noticeable reaction. The skin dented in, but no wound remained.

_"Those pustules,"_ Gnarl though out loud. _"Those could be weak spots."_ The advisor looked up through Sayron's eyes, and briefly shook his head, in the safety of the throne room. "_Pity they continue over the entire body."_ The beast was forty feet high when rearing up, and there were pustules near Florian too, high up on the neck.

Sayron let his eyes wander over the beast. "Minions! Destroy those pustules!"

Immediately reds and green jumped up, to try and reach the blue blobs, clambering over the pink skin. The Ruborians and Nordbergians tried the same with spears and arrows, but the beast turned around roaring, swept its tentacles over the square and gulped down man after man – to spit some back out, covered in slime and gradually mutating.

Then there was the sound of marching feet from the Palace. Soldiers in green, blue and black tunics appeared along the edges of the square, and the Minions on the beast fell down screaming as they were struck by red-feathered arrows.

Then Marius appeared atop one of the piles of rubble. His eyes were wide, but in contrast to almost all others he seemed delighted.

"He's beautiful, he's beautiful!" he cried out, gasping for breath while taking in the creature his Emperor had melted together with – what his Emperor had become. "My god is a wondrous sight! Bow down to the great Devourer, people of the Empire!"

"Devourer," Jinx uttered, desperately trying to stay out of reach of the terrible maw. Yes, that was a fitting name for this beast. Just like the sand worm it'd been, it continuously devoured Minions and men – from all sides. The soldiers, the last the Empire had left, still tried to protect their Emperor on Marius' commands, but they too kept falling prey to 'Solarius'.

"Lord, you are truly a magnificent sight. And I'm sure when you are ready, you will reward me for my loyalty…" Marius folded his hands and raised them up at the beast, but none of the monstrous eyes turned to him, and Florian didn't seem to see him either. The elf, melted into the beast, grinned wildly and didn't seem to be able to think or speak any longer.

_"That thing is insatiable… Lord, make use of the time it spends eating! Send some meals on legs his way if you have to!"_ Gnarl started to sound more urgently than ever. _"What, do you care about those humans, Sire?!"_

And then Jinx realized the advisor had been at the mist pool after all, at the moment Sayron entrusted his secret to her.

Sayron seemed to realize that as well. He looked at the people, running away in terror, but intercepted by tentacles time and time again. "No," he spoke. Gnarl gasped.

Then two of the greens finally reached one of the pustules and let their claw knives sink in it. The pulsating blue structure produced a painful, squeaking sound and then burst open, in a shower of glowing fluid. By then the two had dived away, however, and they came to a rolling standstill. Jinx recognized Whisper and Aphid. "Well done," she nodded. "Again, if you can!"

Gnarl had been forced to turn to other matters than Sayron's shifting alliance. _"That's got him angry, Sire…"_ And indeed, the Devourer reared up and ooze sprayed from its maw. As it thudded down, the ground shook. _"Keep this up and we might be able to extract Florian! He's giving the creature power!"  
><em>

"Good point," the Overlord spoke. "Jinx, where is that bat of yours?"

"I have no idea," Jinx shouted back. She was entangled in a chaotic fight with some soldiers by now, and her face was covered in sprayed blood – not her own. The soldiers were exhausted and in many cases wounded by their earlier march through town. It wasn't a fair fight in most cases and Jinx could stab man after man to death with some help of the Minions – but she knew this was a distraction. The real threat was behind her. But she'd promised herself something… there was someone here she really wanted to run through, and in order to get to him, she had to go through the soldiers.

Marius kept yelling and shouting incoherently, and it was clear to Jinx the Speaker had lost his mind. Maybe he had always been insane. It'd almost be an act of mercy if she killed him now.

"He is your god! Love him!" the brown-haired man screamed, his voice breaking. "Your power will be his, Demon Lord!"

Then suddenly a blue flame flared up, on a still intact balcony on the other side of the square. Rose appeared, straightened out and threw off her hood. Her once flaming red hair was duller now, and flecked with grey, but she still stood tall and proud. "No," her clear voice rang out. "There must be balance! The cycle must be maintained!"

Gnarl hummed to himself. _"I think what the wench is ranting about is that when a force gets out of control, another must rise to stop it."_

"There cannot be light without darkness," Rose called out to her son.

_"And that darkness would be us, Master,"_ Gnarl spoke, with all the hope and persuasion of an advisor to his Overlord… of a tutor to his pupil.

"This thing has to die," Sayron growled. He gripped his mace more firmly, dug his metal gauntlet deeply into the spongy flesh of the Devourer and flung the weapon up with enormous force, so he singlehandedly made a huge pustule burst apart before he landed on Ruau's back again. The Devourer screeched, a terrible sound echoing across the city. Then it threw itself on the houses around the square, utterly crushed the buildings and seemed to absorb the stones with its body. And it seemed to be _growing_.

"It's taking the city apart!" someone called out in fear.

"His aggression shows fear. It can be killed!" Rose shouted.

"You are but bugs to him," Marius raged. "Worship him!"

"You're out of your mind and I'm going to _kill_ you, Marius Ovidius!" Jinx shouted, still trying to fight herself through the soldiers. That way she helped Sayron with his distraction and she worked herself closer to her vengeance. "You threw me into the slums to starve and into the river to drown, but here I stand and I'm going to _kill you!_"

"_Jinx!_" Sayron's deep voice rang out. "I need you here! Doesn't matter if you have your bat or not!"

She apparently still couldn't ignore Sayron's orders… not even if she wanted to. She turned and ran back, to the square now considerably enlarged by the Devourer – the houses around it had been flattened and partly dissolved, and the beast fully used every square meter it had cleared for itself.

The terrible head lurched to and fro uncontrolled, now smacking down to gulp up new victims, them tearing apart walls and pillars. Sometimes it seemed to retreat, then it cut right through Sayron's army and mutated men and Minions stood up from the blue slime the beast left behind like a slug's trail. One of the zombies was a man with wooden beads in the remains of his dreadlocks – Sayron thought it was Omari, overwhelmed by his once useful and welcome sand worm.

The Minions succeeded in destroying some more pustules, and soon the Devourer was leaking blood, ooze and other fluids on all sides. Sayron made good use of his mace, and every blow he dared land was a full hit. Jinx flew around like a bird – she didn't need wings and had enough grip on the crumbling walls around her to land on the beast time and time again, only jumping away at the very last moment. Minions were mutating around her, but she blotted out everything – the sooner this thing was dead, the less she'd lose.

Then it became clear the beast was barely weakened by the attacks on its pustules. They'd managed to destroy almost all of the blue orbs, and had paid the price in Minions and men… but the beast just kept fighting, spewing ooze to the left and right and gulping down people as fast as ever. More buildings collapsed before it, and now the beast started to drive Sayron and his men back, back to the Palace.

"People…" the Overlord called out. "Out of the way, before it's too late! Kivner," he spoke to his remaining lieutenant hurriedly, "go back to the Palace and evacuate the houses there."

"Certainly, my Lord," the Nordbergian saluted.

_"Florian is giving the creature its power,"_ Gnarl repeated, almost beside himself with indignation. _"Use your troops to get to the Emperor, Lord!"_

"I can do that without them," Sayron countered, clinging to his mace almost desperately.

Then he was forced to turn his mount as the Devourer waltzed right past him, grazing a row of white-walled buildings and leaving them torn and crumbling. A tentacle only just swept over his head, and a pool of ooze remained before the hornbeast's hooves.

_"After it, Sire, before it grows even stronger!"  
><em>  
>It was a crazy pursuit, now by the Devourer, then by Sayron and the others. The beast broke through walls and pillars to the left and right, gulping down people and parts of the city, roaring, regurgitating ooze and growing.<p>

At first it wasn't clear where the beast was headed, but then a familiar form towered above the buildings and palaces.

The Arena, enormous, circle-shaped and surrounding the sand-filled clearing inside.

This was probably the highest construction in Arcadiopolis, and also the largest open space. Florian might still have a sense of drama – or the beast just wanted more space.

Before the Devourer had reached the Arena, however, something new streamed in Sayron's direction, past the creature.

Somehow Marius had gotten past them, reaching the Arena before they had, and now he was once again directing soldiers at them – more than before, however, and quite a bit more black tunics than Sayron liked to see. His own men were exhausted by now. Still they threw themselves against Marius' soldiers, without knowing how many the Empire had left, always fighting on.

"I'm sorry, my Lord," a voice suddenly resounded from Sayron's knee height. The Overlord looked down, and jolted.

Kivner was kneeling before him, and blood streamed from the corners of his mouth. A spear protruded from his chest and back. "Glory to you, Master," he muttered, and then he collapsed.

Sayron looked up, and a cold hand clenched his heart. His men were dying around him.

Minion gates had been summoned and the hordes kept coming, but the army he was doing it all for, what he would have left after all of this, had almost been wiped out. Seffec, Marcus, Kivner. All dead. Omari…

Fay was still on her feet and fighting, but even she couldn't keep that up much longer.

But they _had_ to keep it up.

Safe behind his men, Marius was still raging on, with increasing mad vigour as the Devourer approached him. "Now is the time, master, give me my reward. Make me like you!"

"He can't be serious," Jinx muttered. Then her eyes widened. "Oh, no…!"

The Devourer had arched itself over Marius, the maw dripping with ooze… and then that maw came down, and Marius Ovidius disappeared from sight. A slurping sound, a burp… and Jinx' nemesis was gone.

_"I hope they'll be very happy together,"_ Gnarl remarked dryly.

"That was _my_ right," Jinx gnashed. "Well, one solution… I have to kill the Devourer."

But the Devourer had reached the Arena, and flung its tentacles into the walls. Cracks appeared in the tough rock, and here and there the outer wall crumbled, so the rooms within, below the stands, came to light. The red Minions didn't dare go after it.

"Simple," Jinx gulped.

From the nearby Palace red lights suddenly cut through the darkness, aimed at the beast like spotlights. Everywhere people looked up, and at that moment Rose appeared on the roof of the Palace, still wearing her dark cloak and with countless Sentinels by her side. The beast screeched, as the magic that almost completely made up its body started shrivelling away.

The Sentinels had always served Rose, not Marius or the Emperor. Not the Empire. And now they were on Sayron's side.

And then something happened that almost sprung tears to Jinx' eyes with the sense of pure destiny.

Zephyros finally descended from the skies, circling down on swift beating wings, Drip still on his back.

"Jinx!" the blue Minion yelled. "Finally!"

"Where were you?" the horde leader called out.

"He didn't want to land," Drip uttered.

Jinx hugged the rough head. "I know," she spoke. "I'm afraid, too. But now we can beat everything that tried to down us, together. In the Arena."

Zephyros blinked briefly. Jinx flung herself on his back. "They will never touch your wings ever again," she spoke, her jaws clenched together. "Come on! Let's dance, Devourer!"

And the giant bat flung itself up into the sky, rising up along the Arena.

_Can you rise above the world that tried to hold you?_

The horde leader, the bat and the blue Minion all thought the same as they started catching up on the Devourer, just at the moment it hoisted itself up over the Arena wall, to remain lying on the broad wall dripping and uttering strange, hoarse sounds. Then the monstrous neck reared up again and a terrible trumpeting sound echoed from the irregular maw. The eyes retracted and came back out again, bulging out at the bat as he shot out over the wall.

"Florian!" Jinx screamed. "This is where you die!" She flung a purple ball of flame at the threads connecting him to the Devourer, her magic still enforced by the Tower Heart.

"I didn't think so, Purple Scourge," the elf spoke with a terrible, rasping voice, breathing in a wheeze as if his lungs had shrivelled. "Do you remember the last time we met and I had a large beast with me?"

"I survived then," Jinx gnashed, thinking back to her flight from the yeti in the Nordbergian mountains. "And now I have a large beast of my own!" She sent Zephyros away in a swift evading manoeuvre as the Devourer suddenly spat a large glob of blue ooze at her. The glowing projectile flew away over the Arena wall, towards the Palace.

"And now you've taken Marius from me, you leave me no choice." An incessant rain of purple fire descended upon the Devourer as Jinx danced and turned above the Arena, evading or returning everything Florian cast at her. The Devourer screeched with pain and annoyance, even more so as it became fixated in the red Sentinel lights. Maybe they could take it down after all…

Florian seemed to realize that, too. "If you want to play that way," he rasped. All at once, his entire body convulsed, and the sinewy connections between him and the Devourer snapped one by one. Slowly he pulled free from the pinkish flesh. His veined cloak fluttered in the rising wind as he ascended, his eyes shining from within the fleshy mask connected to his face.

"I do want to play this way," Jinx grinned wildly. "One last battle, Emperor!"

"Oh no," Florian chuckled. "The Devourer has the advantage from there!"

Jinx looked down. Now the beast was free of her, it flung down mutating ooze again and again, towards Sayron and the hordes. Whoever she'd choose to follow, they were in danger.

She couldn't help them, however. Florian brought his hands together, floating in the darkened sky above the Arena, and an orb of blue light grew between his palms. Jinx didn't know whether that magic would mutate her or kill her, but she preferred to avoid both.

For a moment she wondered why Rose didn't shine her lights on Florian, but then she realized the elf was too small, and he was moving too fast – she'd be caught in the light herself and have even smaller chances of winning.

_What are you afraid of? You have Zephyros and Drip. At this moment, you are the champion the slums made of you, the Netherworld's champion._

As Florian let his magic fly, the bat folded his wings, plummeted down and soared away over the city at top speed. Florian followed immediately.

The elf swiftly caught up on them. The Emperor and Jinx circled each other, higher and higher into the magic-loaded clouds, until those started flashing with blue lightning in response to Florian's magic. Jinx prayed almost without pause for Zephyros to not be struck by that lightning, as she fired away with her own magic – but Florian turned out to be very hard to hit. When she did hit him he had a shield ready most of the time. His magic was insanely powerful, and he knew it. He finally was more powerful than Fay.

"I'm still growing," he called out. "My transformation still continues!"

"You're not a god," Jinx yelled. "Cut it out and die!"

A blue bolt flew at her, and suddenly Zephyros spun out of the sky screeching. Blood splattered into Jinx' face and she realized her mount's chest had been torn open. "Drip!" she screamed. "Do something!"

"Already on it," the Minion called back. His blue stars were already whirling around the wound, but it healed far too slowly. At the same time the ground kept coming closer.

Those chest muscles were his flight muscles, Jinx knew that very well. Zephyros couldn't rise up before his wound had healed. But they'd never fallen this fast, even with the bat weakly spreading his wings to slow their descent in the smallest of ways.

_Falling. Falling through the dark. No ropes, no hope. You'll never come up again._

"The wound is healed!" Drip called out. "He should be able to fly!"

"Fly, Zeph!" Jinx desperately hugged her mount's huge head. "You can do it! Fly or we all die!"

The ground still came up to meet them at a dizzying pace. She could see the Devourer spew glowing ooze down at the cleared 'square' before the Arena, where Sayron and the others now fought amidst shining pools. The Sentinels still shone their light at the beast. Red Minions climbed the Arena walls, but they were climbing to their deaths. They'd never survive.

They wouldn't survive this fall.

Then Zephyros' wing fingers spread a little more.

"Zeph?!"

For the briefest moment she was back on Everlight, at the moment she'd lain on the bat's back for the very first time and he'd launched himself through the waterfall with closed wings, to spread them only as it had already seemed too late.

"_Zephyros!_"

And the wings unfolded.

The giant bat barely grazed a row of rooftops, dove even lower and swooped over the fighting hordes. His claws closed around a handful of Minions and he dragged them up, without Jinx commanding him so, without her consent.

Zephyros climbed higher and higher, up into the air once again, along the Arena wall, to the Devourer. As he flew over the beast he dropped the Minions. All of them immediately clung to the pinkish flesh, and they started hacking, stabbing and burning away. Jinx looked at them with wide eyes and recognized Spink, Sear and Scabies, amidst others. The one-eyed pirate roared savagely and his parrot flew to the beast's head, to peck at more eyes than ever before.

"Good move," it then resounded.

Jinx looked up. Into sunken blue eyes.

Florian had come up above them, with both hands full of crackling, sick magic. One move and Zephyros was surrounded by a flashing cage of light. Escape was impossible.

Below her the screaming of Minions resounded. A gaze down revealed Clout and Spink had mutated and turned on the rest, though Spink was quickly thrown off the wall – down, to Sayron, and to be a problem if he survived the fall.

Scabies and Sear looked back at her. "Fight, Jinx!"

She looked back at Florian. He didn't seem about to throw his magic. He wanted to force her down, to the jaws of the beast, the horde leader realized. Her breathing quickened, until it came faster than the rhythm of Zephyros' feverish wingbeat.

Could this be it?

On the ground Sayron was barely able to keep his attention with his own battle, fierce though it might be. The Devourer's slime had mutated men and Minions all around, and they fought more savagely than ever. Everyone was a potential enemy. But now the beast had stopped spewing the slime, and after a while the stream of mutants stopped as well.

The giant bat hung between the Devourer and Florian himself.

As Sayron looked on some more pustules burst on the back of the beast, and the head jolted as the Devourer screeched – but it wasn't distracted.

How could his horde leader survive this, caught between two of these creatures? He could do nothing but watch, and not only hope Jinx would join him if he was Emperor, but also for the both of them to survive this last battle at all.

She could hear the buzz of Florian's magic, piercing like that of thousands of flies. Below her was the Devourer's gaping, dripping maw, five meters across, and about to have the beast live up to its name.

"You've caused us more trouble than reasonably possible, street rat," Florian rasped. "No more."

The Devourer snorted and opened its maw even further, raised up as high as it could, reaching for her and her mount. Jinx clung to Zephyros' mane and saddle crampedly.

"Soon we'll return to your Overlord!" With those words Florian fell out to her, his magic ready to kill her or force her down.

The Devourer snapped.

And Jinx jumped from the saddle.

In the top of the cage of light Florian tried to fly up or jab at her, but before he had the chance Jinx had already grabbed his arms. Together they came down upon Zephyros' back, as crimson blood splattered from Jinx' hands, arms and chest as Florian's magic and his fused sword dug into her flesh. The horde leader screamed with pain, but she no longer had any control over the situation and there was no need for it either.

The duo rolled off the bat's back and towards the Devourer's maw.

In the air, Jinx threw herself atop Florian, so he ended up below her. Just in time.  
>As the beast snapped up a second time it was the Emperor to disappear into the giant mouth. Jinx let go, bounced off the dripping, spongy neck, came down upon the Arena wall with a nauseating sound and remained lying there. As Zephyros landed next to her and Drip slid from the saddle the blue hissed briefly – her chest and arms had been ripped open completely and her left arm hung loose at the shoulder, only attached with a flinter of bone and some tendons. She was still conscious, but only barely.<p>

"Nothing I can't handle, Jinx," he spoke, dragging her away from the Devourer, raging and convulsing on the wall. "Hang on…"

_"Seems to be enjoying his meal,"_ Gnarl uttered.

Sayron nodded wordlessly. Now they had only one enemy left. The battle in the square was mainly against healthy soldiers now, but the main part of his army that was still alive had its attention with the Arena.

The Devourer swept around its neck and tentacles, as the Emperor appeared to be resisting fiercely, somewhere in its throat. The beast no longer had eyes for the Minions on its back.

How long it would remain like this, he didn't know, but at this moment the immediate threat had subsided.

On the wall, only a short distance from the convulsing Devourer, Jinx painfully climbed to her feet.

"Zeph... once more." It came out weakly as Jinx tested her arm. She climbed back into the saddle, and dragged Drip behind her with her good arm – just before the Devourer saw them and fell out. The Minions had let themselves slide off the beast by now and had hurried away, across the wall or down along it.

Zephyros glided away from the Arena, over the city. Then he turned.

Jinx unsheathed her sword. One enemy. One blow.

What Florian could do, she should be able to do too.

Forget Sayron, for now – this was her chance, her moment.

As the bat approached the Arena, flapping furiously over the darkened city beneath a sky flashing with blue lightning, Jinx gathered all the magic she had left in her body, everything she'd taken from the Tower Heart, everything she could muster. She kept her sword next to her, flat and horizontal, pointing away from Zephyros' body. And as the bat approached the Devourer, a hellishly purple beam formed like an extension of the weapon.

One blow.

The bat shot over the Arena wall, past the beast's neck, and on over the sand-strewn field.

The Devourer jolted with them, and there wasn't half a meter between them before blue, glowing blood sprayed from the full outline of its neck, and the head with the terrible maw, no longer able to produce any sound, plummeted down into the Arena to thud down into a pool of blue light in the sand.

Then something slid out of the opened throat, covered in blood and ooze, to smack down within the walls as well.

Sayron ran straight through the Arena wall, entering through one of the holes the Devourer had made as it'd climbed up. Through the upper dungeons he ran, his remaining men and Minions with him. Below the stands, and eventually through raised bars, as if he was amusement for the Emperor once again.

But now the Emperor was kneeling before him.

Exhausted and dripping with blood and ooze, Florian tried to stand up. Behind him the rest of the Devourer's body finally thudded down into the sand, convulsing violently.

Sayron realized that even now the Emperor wasn't giving up. He actually tried to heal himself using his remaining magic.

"From the belly of the beast, I am reborn," Florian uttered as he struggled to his feet. "Soon I will ascend and divinity will be truly mine!"

_"Quick, Sire,"_ Gnarl pressed. _"Whilst he's being all divine… Draw out his magical energy!"_

Sayron reached out and created the magical link – a flashing bolt between him and Florian.

"This is what I should have been," the elf wheezed. "The world has been put right…"

Fay stepped forward, next to Sayron. Her dress was torn beyond repair and the blood of many half-healed wounds had dried by now. "Brother, stop it," she spoke.

Florian started glowing with a haunting blue light. "I have risen! And the world shall bow before me! This is it! My ascension! I'm being taken up…!"

Sayron shielded his eyes from the glow of their combined magic. Then he shook his head and dealt a crushing blow with his mace.

"I will embrace the world," it sounded from within the blinding light.

Then the only sound was the breaking of bones.

Zephyros landed on the opposite Arena wall. Jinx remained sitting on his back, cramped, trembling and unstable. She realized she and Zephyros were covered in ooze, but it didn't harm them – now the source of the sick magic had been destroyed the magical plague didn't seem to have any hold on them.

The Devourer and the Emperor lay dead in the Arena. Florian had died where she thought he'd perished after all.

And she'd killed the beast. She'd dealt the final blow.

It was all over and she'd dealt the final blow.

For a moment, this was enough to turn her legs to jelly. Then, however, all her muscles tensed and she felt herself fill up with warmth… and pride.

**(NETHERWORLD)**

In the Netherworld Velvet of Angelis smiled widely. Jinx, her Jinx, had won victory and everyone knew it. She couldn't see her daughter, only the shadow of the bat on the high wall of the Arena, but she could imagine the way she felt right now.

Then a deep, dark voice only she could hear resounded around her.

"_It's time. She's ready. Tell her._"

Velvet jolted. Then her face stiffened and she nodded lightly.

**(SURFACE)**

Sayron stared up from the Arena sand as the giant bat drifted down on dark wings. He barely noticed as Rose came standing next to him, her hood still hanging on her back, her red braid gleaming in the half-light.

"And so it has ended. The cycle starts afresh…" She slowly walked past him, to the centre of the Arena.

As Zephyros landed, almost all the surviving Minions ran and limped past Sayron and towards Jinx, helping her up as she almost collapsed, laughing and cheering the whole time. They dragged her to Sayron, and the Overlord stepped forward, grabbed her, and hoisted her onto his shoulders without an argument, roaring with laughter and the joy of victory. It wasn't long before Jinx laughed with him, happier than she'd ever been – it didn't matter what happened after this, at this moment she'd completed her goal in life, the Emperor was dead and she was still alive!

As Sayron eventually put her down he outstretched his hand. "Jinx… that deserves a reward. I want to give you this." A light shone in the palm of his hand, and Jinx jolted as she realized it was half of the magic he'd pulled out of Florian. It wasn't all the power from the Vat, as the major part of that had been lost with the Devourer, but it was still more power than she'd ever had.

As Jinx received it she felt strength flow back into her body and limbs – she felt stronger. "Now I can party on all night," she grinned, beaming with joy.

"And we will," Sayron nodded. Then he put his hands to his helmet. "I'm the Emperor now… so I won't be needing this…"

Jinx blinked. "Sayron…"

The Overlord took off his helmet.

For the first time in her life Jinx looked upon his face. He had a deep blue skin there as well, covered in the same spiralling white markings. His eyes still glowed with a fiery light. He had fine, pearly white hair that fell down to his shoulders, but in a way that only made him look younger. His face was noble, the face of a worthy Emperor, even despite his eyes and the colour of his skin.

He tucked his helmet under an arm. And for the very first time, Jinx could read his happiness from something other than his eyes.

A little distance away Rose was still slowly walking to the middle of the Arena. She wasn't far from the partying group as she held still and looked up at the clouds, now thinning and letting a few stars shine through. And there she allowed herself to let a single tear roll down her cheek, for the Empire, which hadn't been the solution she'd hoped for, and for her husband.

"Marius," she muttered, barely audible. A brief expression of sorrow and regret passed over her face.

A tremor coursed through the ground. She turned abruptly. There, between her and the group, a Tower Gate unfolded its spikes. And from the blue light stepped a single figure, descending the stairs through the settling dust. Someone in a grey cloak, which she now let flutter to the ground. Beneath it she wore magnificently crafted black lace.

"_Velvet?_"

In the group, Jinx caught sight of her mother, and she came running. The rest followed in a calmer pace.

Velvet stepped towards her sister, came very close for a brief moment, and lay one hand against her sister's cheek, following the trail of the single tear with her eyes. "Why are you crying, Rose…? Ah, of course." She smiled slightly. "Marius… He loved you, you know, sweet sister. Pity he didn't know about your son."

Rose opened her mouth, but Velvet was faster. Her eyes were suddenly poisonous. "You've made a nice choice, sister." Velvet gestured to Sayron. "Him, whom you left behind in Nordberg, before the man who loved you." Her eyes narrowed. "But I know why. You still loved Vessperion." Her smile was unfathomable. "Pity _you_ didn't know a little something about him..."

Rose stiffened. "What? What are you talking about?"

Jinx stepped closer to her mother, but she didn't have the chance to say anything.

"Pity you didn't know he not only had a son, but also a _daughter_." Velvet's smile widened, and it was plainly demonic now. Her pearly grey eyes narrowed.

"Mine."

And then, all by itself, an azure bolt freed itself from the Tower Gate and dragged them back to the Netherworld.

**Thousands of soldiers swarm the capital, preparing to fix it for the new Emperor as General Maraxus Herbison watches the Arena with his eyes wide open.**

**Maraxus: No… oh please for the love of fudge and crumpets tell me no!**

**Soldier: Sir?**

**Maraxus: Jinx is Velvet's daughter… and also the daughter of Vessperion…**

**Soldier: So that means… oh no.**

**Maraxus: Jinx and Sayron are step-brother and step-sister! They both are the children of the Overlord and that means they both have a claim to the throne… NOOOOOOOO!**

**General Herbison sprints for the Gate as the soldiers follow.**

**Maraxus: That dream! A war between Jinx and Sayron! I need every available unit to converge on the Netherworld! Bring everything! We cannot allow the war to happen!**


	40. Children of the Abyss Part 1

**General Maraxus Herbison descended to the Netherworld just as the portal closed, leaving his army unable to assist.**

**Maraxus: Oh please tell me this is not true. Tell me Velvet is lying.**

**Gnarl shook his head: I fear that she is right.**

**Maraxus: If it is true… then all hell is going to break loose.**

**Gnarl nodded.**

**Maraxus: Oh fudge… alright ladies and gentlemen I do not own this utterly epic story nor its OCs. It all belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart… brace for impact and read on.**

**Children of the Abyss Part 1**

A blinding blue flash, a clap of thunder, and suddenly the darkened Arena in Arcadiopolis had been replaced by the dark, magma- and torch-lit throne room of the Netherworld.

Upon descending, the ones who'd only just vanquished the Emperor first looked around dazedly, but then everyone's attention was turned to Velvet. Rose was uncharacteristically flustered, and she immediately hurried towards her sister. The same applied to Sayron, and even more to Jinx, though she was mainly reeling with disbelief. As she reached her mother it was with wide eyes and a hammering heart.

"Mother, what do you mean? I can't be Vessperion's daughter..." She frowned with confusion, her former joy completely forgotten, because if this were to be true, she'd landed right back into trouble. "Why are you saying this?"

"Because you are, and more... and because it is finally time to tell you," Velvet spoke, utter seriousness in her eyes. Then she choked for breath, as Sayron had clutched her by the throat. His eyes were glowing red, and the fact he wasn't wearing his helmet only made him more fearsome – now his rage could be read from his entire face. "You're lying, witch."

"No... Lord Sayron." Velvet actually managed to smile. "No," she uttered. "Just look." She lay her hand against his bare cheek and closed her eyes.

"What…" the Overlord begun, but then he fell silent.

And then the throne room whirled away for everyone, and different images altogether appeared before their mind's eyes.

**(ANGELIS/MANY YEARS AGO)**

_A young, stunningly beautiful woman with short black hair let herself slide out of bed. She was naked. She walked over to a spot on the ground where her clothes were lying in a crumpled heap, and dressed herself in a daze.  
><em>

_He was gone.  
><em>

_He hadn't taken her as his Mistress. And that while he'd just done to her what Overlords usually did to their Mistresses.  
><em>

_He'd made her believe that she, so much younger and more beautiful, would replace her sister in his Tower… and after she'd thanked him for that, he'd left!  
><em>

_Suddenly she was stomping her feet in anger. "Son of a pig, halfling-screwing troll of a man…!" She'd lost William, __and__ he'd humiliated her and left her behind alone! For a moment it was too much – she'd never expected it to go this wrong.  
><em>

_An echoing poof resounded through the hall.  
><em>

_"Easy, my child."  
><em>

_She knew that voice.  
><em>

_She spun around. Her eyes widened. "F-father?"  
><em>

_"It's me," the white-bearded man in the dull red cloak smiled, as he came striding through the elegant hall. The last sparks of his magical arrival still whirled around his fingers. But despite his words Velvet knew at once there was something off about Fengor the Red, the mightiest wizard of the last few centuries. This was not her father.  
><em>

_She opened her mouth, but Fengor placed a finger upon her lips. "Hush. I know what he's done. But things are not beyond repair, my child."  
><em>

_She looked at him in confusion. "Father, I… What do you mean?"  
><em>

_Her father smiled in a way that seemed incompatible with the rest of his face, but suddenly Velvet wasn't troubled by it at all anymore. She felt a dark desire fill her thoughts… a desire for vengeance. Vessperion and Rose weren't getting away with this. She, Velvet of Angelis, wouldn't let herself be humiliated this easily.  
><em>

_"There is a way," Fengor whispered, still with that smile. He lay a hand on her now still flat, slender belly. "Before long Rose, too, will be bearing a child from this new, young Overlord, Vessperion. But your child is the eldest. __Your__ child is the rightful heir to the dark throne, my most worthy daughter!"  
><em>

_Velvet's eyes started gleaming. Then she cast her gaze down. "But it won't be raised as an Overlord. My child doesn't have a chance at all."  
><em>

_"Follow me," her father beckoned – if he was her father still.  
><em>

_Together they passed through the grand halls of the citadel where Sir William of Angelis had spent his final days. Before long they came upon the slaughter Vessperion had caused to skewer Angelis' Hero on the tip of his sword. Velvet looked around untouched. The complete Order of the Red Dawn had been massacred, and men in scarlet robes lay scattered everywhere. Three succubi with broken wings littered the floor of the dining hall. And everywhere were those little creatures the Overlord had brought with him – despite his victory, a lot of them had been killed as well. Strange orbs of coloured light lay strewn about the citadel.  
><em>

_Fengor bent down and picked up a golden light. "This is life force," he spoke slowly. "Life force which has been possessed by __Minions.__ Their powers and talents…"  
><em>

_Velvet slowly started smiling. "And… if I…"  
><em>

_"This is my gift to my grandchild," Fengor smiled. He pressed his hand to Velvet's belly again. The golden life force flowed inside. The black-haired woman briefly closed her eyes, and opened them again with a broader smile. "More."  
><em>

_A red, green and blue orb of light, too, vanished within her body. Afterwards, Fengor looked deep into his daughter's eyes. "When your child is born, it will be an unique creature, probably able to match his or her powers with the other Overlord that'll walk the earth. This is my gift to you, my daughter." He paused. "In exchange for this I'm expecting your full support when I confront Vessperion."  
><em>

_"Of course… father." Velvet smiled slyly. She had long since noticed this absolutely wasn't her father. But this new personality pleased her much more than the goody-goody wizard who'd denied her all the guilty pleasures in life previously…_

Nine months later…

_There was no way Fengor the Red could ever have witnessed the birth of his grandchild. Still, Velvet's thoughts were uncontrollably drawn to him at the sight of the reddening sheets, in the red light of the setting sun. Despite the blood loss – so severe the midwife grew ever more panicked – the expectant mother's mind was curiously clear. She hoped she'd survive the birth. She wanted to see what the life force had done to her child.  
><em>

_"I can see the head, milady!" the midwife called out. She outstretched her hands to coax the baby out – then abruptly pulled them back. She gasped for breath. The beginning of a scream rattled in the back of her throat.  
><em>

_Velvet bored her gaze into wide eyes in a paling face. Then the woman collapsed.  
><em>

_During the half hour that followed, Velvet guided herself through the birth. The urge to know what the midwife had seen kept her conscious. Then, surprisingly swift and abrupt, it was over.  
><em>

_The sun slid below the horizon.  
><em>

_And a shrill cry echoed through the halls of the citadel.  
><em>

_Velvet took the bloodied baby in her arms. Her gaze slid over the child.  
><em>

_A scaly skin. Pointy ears. Still soft claws for nails. As her daughter – for it was a girl – opened her large eyes for a brief moment, Velvet was regarded with slight wonder, and by amber orbs, glowing faintly in the gloom.  
><em>

_The baby yawned. The fading light gleamed off little pointy teeth.  
><em>

_Feeding is going to pose a problem,__ Velvet thought hazily._

In the very first year of her life little Jinx swapped her razorlike teeth for a normal human set. Her eyes changed colour to become a clear grey, her skin flaked until the scales had disappeared. Her ears grew less pointy with every passing year. She had her mother's black hair. Never did she show any tendencies to behave like a Minion, and neither did she seem to have magical talents. Still her mother loved her, and kept hoping.

_When Jinx was three years of age, the magical plague eventually drove them to Arcadiopolis.  
>And the rest, as they say, was history…<br>_

**(NETHERWORLD/ PRESENT)**  
><em>I know you wondered about your Minion gifts, my child. Healing, immunity to poison. I'm sorry.<br>You are a Minion._

As Jinx came back to her senses, her head spinning, and the throne room took the place of Angelis' grand halls, she first became aware of the silence around her. All seemed frozen, everyone held their breath. She herself felt as if her heart had stopped beating.

Everything inside her resisted her mother's revelation. But at the same time, she knew it to be true.  
>Vessperion's shade in the magic room... he wasn't her uncle. He was her <em>father<em>.

She was Vessperion's eldest.

She was Sayron's half-sister.

And... she really was part Minion. She was a _Minion_, and that was the easiest thing to understand... her strange gifts, the sense of homecoming when she'd seen the Netherworld for the first time... her feelings towards her horde members.

She was... heir to the throne.

This was enough to almost topple her over, and she faltered as her knees weakened.

But barely a meter away Sayron was still clenching her mother's throat, and now, now things started moving again, he lifted her slightly off the ground in his rage. "You're lying," he hissed, his teeth clenched together and bared like a predator's. His eyes flashed nearly white now, and Jinx could almost feel the heat emanating from him. "You're _lying!_"

His throat was suddenly raw, and he realized his fury was fuelled by grief. He hadn't believed it. He hadn't been able to take in that Jinx... that he… _now_…

He could not, didn't _want_ to take in what this meant for him and the horde leader he'd come to trust with his life.

"You're lying," he growled again, and even the Minions backed away.

"You know it's true," Velvet choked out.

Sayron pulled back one hand, as if he was about to strike her. Then, however, a light flashed in the palm of his hand, and countless razor-sharp bolts of lightning pierced Velvet of Angelis, so fast and so many times blood spurted from her stomach and back in a broad, splattering stream.

The Overlord opened his fist and dropped her. Her broken body smacked down onto the throne room floor, and a pool of blood immediately crept towards the trapdoor.

Jinx screamed, short and shrill. She dropped her ropes, ran forward tripping and came to an almost sliding standstill at her mother's side, as the blood soaked her trousers from the knee to her feet.

"Mother," she whispered hoarsely. "Drip! Soaker! Please!"

But the blues didn't come. A glance clouded by tears revealed the Minions were standing along the walls of the throne room, looking on as if frozen in place. A whisper coursed through the ranks, but she didn't make out any of it.

She pressed her forehead against Velvet's. "Mother…"

Velvet moved, weakly and shivering, as a trembling breath escaped her lips. "Seize your chance, my girl," she uttered softly. The grey eyes opened slightly.

Then they remained fixed on Jinx, staring right through her. Velvet's face stiffened, and life left her body.

Jinx shrunk down and buried her face into her arms, racked with sobs. She didn't react at all as Sayron's metal footsteps approached her, and not even as his spiky gauntlet rested heavily upon her shoulder.

"Jinx, stand up."

No reaction.

A heavy sigh, as if he came back to his senses after something he hadn't wanted to do. "Jinx… I'm offering you a chance. I don't care what you are, or who you are."

"I was loyal to you," spoke a very soft voice from behind the short, choppy curtain of black hair obscuring the horde leader's face.

"Jinx, look at me."

And then she suddenly flew to her feet, her boots wide apart, her eyes burning from within her tear-streaked face. "_I was loyal to you!_" she screamed. All her teeth were bared in an expression of at least as much rage as Sayron had just displayed. "I fought for you! I gave my life for you! We _all_ gave our lives for you!" She was breathing heavily, and her chest heaved, as if she'd been drowning but she'd finally found air again now. "We were _loyal_ to you." She narrowed her eyes, as tears still ran down her face. "But you were never loyal to us, not to them, and not to me." She looked around, to the Minions, gathering here in the throne room ever faster now. They came up from the arenas and down from the private quarters, and the floating rock also brought them in without pause. Brown, red, green and blue, and above the throne Gnarl stood looking down with large, old eyes, staring at Vessperion's children as they stood face to face, their eyes full of hate, and as the motionless three-headed sculpture above the throne curved down at them.

"I've grown, from the beginning on, and now I've become a threat to you," the horde leader spoke softly, slowly, realizing that fact for herself for the first time. Sayron stared down at her, his hands opened crampedly.

"He wanted to leave you!" Jinx then shouted out, her voice echoing through the hall, and a jolt coursed through the Minions. "He wanted to leave the Netherworld to rule the Empire, without you, with humans for an army!" Her eyes actually glowed now, just as much as those of the hordes now they started growling, now their voices grew louder and the whispers turned to a constant, raspy murmur.

"Not true," a loud voice growled, and Jinx turned to look straight into Aches' eyes. "Master wouldn't leave us."

"Maybe he would," another voice spoke, and the horde leader looked around to Soaker, who was gazing up at Gnarl. The advisor was still staring down, and his expression spoke more than words. "Isn't that so, Gnarl?"

"Minions," Sayron started in a loud voice, but a drawn-out growl silenced him. He looked down with wide eyes as a single Minion moved between him and Jinx, teeth bared and eyes full of fire – a small Minion, but bigger than he'd been last Midwinter, with a silken hat and a ragged red cloak around his shoulders. As he looked on, more Minions joined Kniff, around Jinx. Others, however, came standing behind him – Minions from his own youth, Minions who'd served his father and who'd follow the three-pronged helmet anywhere, Minions who'd never accepted Jinx' leadership.

Jinx' Minions held the majority, however. All the more now her eyes slowly seemed to change colour. They were glowing, but no longer with silver light. Now they slowly flowed over into fiery gold... the undeniable colour of Minion eyes.

And both leaders were overwhelmed by déjà vu.

A glance down revealed they were now both standing on the trapdoor, where Velvet's blood dripped down into the heart of the world. And a glance up...

The sculpture above the throne had been completed a few weeks ago, the rock being reshaped into the form of a three-headed dragon with spread wings. Now, however, was the first time the six eyes started glowing, with a blinding golden light. The claws clenched, with a sound of splintering basalt. The wings moved, slowly, but driven by an ancient force.

And the trapdoor opened itself.

Above the throne Gnarl stared down, trapped in his own nightmare. He outstretched a hand to them, but there was nothing he could do. He could only listen as his Master and the horde leader fell to their deaths, screaming.

At the same moment the two Minion hordes threw themselves against each other, and chaos and screaming filled the throne room.

The three-headed dragon stared at him for a moment, then he disappeared altogether, leaving a gaping hole in the Tower wall behind the throne, so the orange light fell in.

Falling.

Falling through the dark, and no way to hook on, to stop, to survive.

Jinx and Sayron fell freely through their own dreams. Only this time, the situation was finally real.

They were both screaming, but barely aware of it. Just like during her first flight with Zephyros, countless thoughts rushed through Jinx' head, but she couldn't grasp any of them. All of Sayron's impulses were drowned by his heartbeat and the rush of the Netherworldly wind.

Then the darkness opened to them and the two suddenly bathed in fiery orange light. The light from the heart of the world.

It'd always been there, beneath their feet, as much a part of their home as the black basalt itself. They'd never expected to ever see it up this close. They'd never expected there would one day be nothing left between them and the immortal fire.

Sayron desperately strained himself to look up. The Tower seemed to have shrunk in a strange way from this perspective, stabbing down at him like this, like an accusing black finger. The floating rocks formed a rough circle.

And one of them whizzed towards him.

It happened with such speed he couldn't believe it at first, and then a dagger of fear dug into his stomach. His death would come even earlier than expected, broken on the floating rock…

As the rock soared beneath him, however, the Overlord slowed down in the air as if he was landing in the magic room. The last few inches of his fall were gentle, and he dropped onto the polished basalt, for the rock to carry him back up to the Tower.

He stared down. Jinx was still falling.

Then a second shade flung itself past him, too swift for the eye to follow.

By now, Jinx was too hoarse to scream. Tears were ripped from her eyes by the speed, greater than during any dive with Zephyros.

Zephyros… he was still in Arcadiopolis. He hadn't come down through the Tower Gate with them.

Then a high-pitched cry echoed through the void far below the Tower.

Her neck almost snapped, her head shot up that fast. "Zeph?!" she screamed.

And then, just like in her dream, all those months ago in the Wasteland, a dark shade shot past her.

Before she smacked down onto his back she seemed to slow down abruptly, so she nor the bat broke anything upon impact. Jinx twisted into the right position immediately and buckled herself in. She was panting uncontrollably. She'd survived! The fall from her nightmare had become reality and she'd _survived!_

Sayron had also survived.

What was happening? This was insane. Nothing made sense. Her whole world had been torn from its hinges.

Her mother was dead.

Then the horde leader suddenly felt how her crippling grief turned itself into anger. Sayron had made a mistake, she swore to herself. He'd made a grave mistake, by killing Velvet, by abandoning the Minions... by abandoning them now it'd become clear _she_ would be able to take them over.

Not that she had a choice in the matter. This realization came with a sting of almost physical pain. Just now Sayron had accepted her as his equal, just now she'd found out she was closer to him than she'd ever expected, just now she could do nothing else but turn against him. He wouldn't rest before she was dead, now it'd become apparent she had a right to the throne. He wouldn't let her live so she could take the Minions and march upon him.

The warm wind from the heart of the world lifted Zephyros and allowed him to soar back up, steadily rising along the Tower. And there the horde leader suddenly heard the clash of weapons and rasping screams.

The hordes had been torn in two. There was a war going on in the throne room.

And then something changed within her. This gave her strength. This erased all pain.

For the very first time, the Minions fought for _her_. And by the sound of it they did so with more determination than ever before.

The throne room was a battlefield.

There was no clear division between the two parties. Randomly distributed across the entire mass of Minions, individuals had or hadn't turned upon their Master. All clans were in it; browns hacked away at their opponents with wild eyes, reds had climbed the walls and now flung down fire through the entire hall so everyone stood equal chances of turning into a fireball themselves, greens flashed around in invisibility and blues dragged away the dead on all sides of the battle, but they could barely take the bodies anywhere as there was almost no square meter left unoccupied.

Gnarl was still standing above the throne, as if frozen in place. He'd seen this before, as Lord Vessperion had returned and stumbled upon his predecessor – the powerful, dark Lord Alcazar, in the body of the wizard Fengor the Red. Some Minions had remained loyal to Sayron's father, but many of those had now chosen loyalty to Jinx.

Vessperion had stayed with the Minions until the end. Sayron hadn't planned to do so.

And still, Gnarl couldn't choose a side now. He hadn't done then either, simply waiting who'd win in the end, who'd survive. He didn't ask questions. He only served Evil.

Dark wings sailed up along the Tower, and Jinx guided Zephyros to the dark, rough rock face all the way in the top of the cave, where the stalactite met the Netherworld's ceiling. The bat hooked on, and Jinx inhaled deeply.

She stared at her hands. They weren't really claws yet, but her nails were quite a bit more sharp and pointy, all of a sudden, and she felt she'd be able to use them as weapons if she wanted to. The same went for her teeth; she tasted blood as she was a bit careless with her tongue.

A savage joy washed over her heart. What did everything else matter now? She was home, in the Netherworld, and now also in her own body. Every breath she took was that of a Minion. She'd finally become what she _was_. A Minion among Minions. A Minion Mistress.

Beneath her a small dark speck whizzed past, silhouetted against the orange glow. As it came closer Jinx could see it was the floating rock, Sayron on the middle of it, tall and proud. In his hand the lightning burst into life as soon as he saw her.

Zephyros let go of the Tower and spread his wings. Jinx curved her fingers and bared her new teeth.

"Don't be blind, Jinx!" the Overlord called out as he came closer. "We don't have to do this! We can rule – together!"

"_You're_ blind!" Jinx yelled back. "I would never follow you to the surface! All this time I belonged here, with the Minions, on the throne! All this time I was more at home in the Netherworld than you ever were!" She tightly grabbed on to Zephyros' mane and braced herself for the impact as the bat neared the rock. "I now understand why I always followed your orders almost involuntarily…" With a huge thud and a scraping of wing claws Zephyros hooked on to the rock. "But that will never happen again!"

Zephyros hissed and spat at Sayron, and the Overlord backed away, lightning still in his gauntlet. His eyes were wide, but they flamed a bloody red, always a very reliable sign of his fury. He could also see Jinx rearing up, however, awakening her own magic, and his gaze was irresistibly drawn to her face.

As he tried to fend off the snapping, growling giant bat with blows of his mace, the face of his half-sister, his horde leader, changed. Her eyes became larger and rounder, and now they were truly glowing with amber light. Jinx no longer had white to her eyes, only the liquid gold of the Minions. All her teeth were bared and it was a full set of Minion fangs now. Her ears, sticking out past her bandana, grew longer and pointier before his eyes. Along her jaw bumps appeared, possibly to turn into cheek spikes later.

Jinx had shed her human form. She'd returned to the appearance she'd had at birth, which had already shone through in the magic room. Her true form.

"I'm _home,_ half-brother!" the Minion Mistress growled. And her hellishly purple magic crackled fiercely as she flung it at him.

Sayron protected himself with a shield. Then he let his own lightning flash.

The bolt struck Zephyros squarely between the eyes. The bat screeched shrilly, and all his muscles briefly tensed. Then his claws slid off the floating rock with a terrible scraping sound, and the flyer plummeted into the depths.

In the Tower no one was aware of the drama outside in the void. They were all too preoccupied with surviving.

Groups had formed more clearly now, but many Minions were still very confused. Leave the Master they'd taken care of for years, and who'd led them into the most glorious war in centuries? But wasn't it really Jinx who'd led them everywhere… and what if she was right? There had been abandoning Masters before, and everyone knew the story of Mistress Rose who'd turned her back on the Tower after Vessperion died. Sayron was her son, after all.

In the middle of the hall a battle was going on between three Minions. They'd almost molten together into a ball of scaly skin and flashing knives. Their spiders were fighting a little way further, rattling and hissing and rearing up with gleaming fangs.

Whisper and Ramul finally faced their rival, Scythe. Only now, the current leader was at a disadvantage. This wasn't a fight for leadership between three Minions. This was two against one, for the side the entire clan would choose.

Scythe was standing his ground admirably. His knives were dripping with blood, and Ramul and Whisper were covered in long, deep cuts. The skin on Whisper's chest hung loose in ragged flaps in some places, and every time he raised his arm blood spurted around. Ramul's arms and shoulders were a mess of crisscrossing wounds. But the blood covering their underarms and running down their faces wasn't their own. After another few moments the tide of their battle turned and they mercilessly ripped Scythe to pieces; long strikes over his chest, neck and eventually his face as he grew too slow to protect himself. A dark pool of blood formed around his clawed feet and mingled with that of his attackers. Then his mangled, torn body collapsed into it and the pool splattered away to all sides.

"Bad leaders always lose," Whisper hissed, his eyes fierce and narrow with fury. He blinked the blood away.

"Two leaders?" Ramul asked, wiping over his face and glancing back at his spider. Scythe's mount had hurried away, onto the walls, where a few reds turned upon it.

"One leader," Whisper replied in determination. He looked at his brother in arms with blazing eyes.

"Jinx."

"Jinx," Ramul nodded, his jaws clenched together. Then the two plunged back into the fight around them, and the green clan followed.

Sayron stared down for a few moments, standing on the floating rock. Had he killed the bat? Had he killed Jinx?

He briefly closed his eyes. He'd wanted to kill her. He'd had to kill her. After all the time she'd served him, helped him, got him armies and led them in his name… now she'd finally emerged as a threat.

He couldn't tolerate her any longer.

He _would_ go up to take his place as Emperor. And she wouldn't take the Minions and turn against him. The Minions would stay here, in the dark, with their spiders and salamanders, cut off from the upper world by a portal that was useless without him. And slowly dying out because the Hives were no longer fertilized without him. It was over. He didn't need them any longer.

Then the floating rock suddenly put itself into motion, but not into the direction he'd wanted it to. The rock descended, slowly, but very steadily. Sayron stabilized himself with outstretched arms and tried to force the rock up with his will, but it didn't react. He was going after Jinx, whether he wanted to or not.

"_It's not too late, Lord Sayron._"

Sayron jolted. A voice bored itself straight into his head, an echoing voice with multiple tones. "Not too late for what?" The Overlord looked around, but couldn't make out the source of the deep, dark tones.

"_It's never too late to return. They'd still trust you. Overlording is a lifelong profession, didn't you know?_"

"Who are you?"

"_I'm darkness, and fire, and fear._" The voice twisted itself around him as the rock descended, towards the orange light beneath the Overlord's feet. "_I'm the maker of this Tower, and I'm behind the Minions' loyalty. And I'm still offering you a choice, Lord Sayron._"

Sayron straightened out, as the rock came closer and closer to the fire. "I don't take orders," he spoke, narrowing his blazing eyes.

"_Oh, but yes. Shall I reunite you with your sister, Overlord?_"

"If she's alive…" Sayron clenched his fists. "Then I'll gladly go after her to kill her. And to look you in the eye," he added.

And the rock descended.

**General Herbison and Gnarl watch the war between the Minions rage through the Netherworld.**

**Maraxus: No…**

**Gnarl: Were your army to have made it alongside you, who would you stand with?**

**Maraxus: I…I don't know. To serve the Overlord, now Emperor, or to support his elder half-sister who I still have a crush on despite her transformation, and who is the true heir to the throne… agh!**

**Gnarl ducks as a fireball hit Maraxus: You may want to leave until this is over.**

**Maraxus: The portal is offline, and even if it was working I am not running away. I am going to see this through to the end.**

**Gnarl: Well said, listen to me you readers, this story was created by a dedicated female writer and published here by this male human for your viewing, it's not too much to ask for a few nice words is it? Review, and answer this… who do you serve? Sayron or Jinx?**


	41. Children of the Abyss Part 2

**Maraxus and Gnarl continue to monitor the war raging through the Netherworld.**

**General Herbison: I hate this. Sayron versus Jinx, Minions versus Minions and I can't interfere without my army for support.**

**Gnarl: Do as I do. Wait until this battle is over and support the victor.**

**General: But I want Jinx to win, at the same time however my loyalty should be to the Overlord… ugh my head.**

**Gnarl pats his knee: There, there poor human. Do the disclaimer and hope your fair lady wins.**

**General: I do not own this story, it belongs to Sunjinjo on deviantart as do her OCs.**

**Children of the Abyss Part 2**

Falling. 

_Won't it ever stop?_

This thought coursed through Jinx' head with almost hysterical calmth as her mount tumbled down with limp wings, as she was still buckled into the saddle, as the Tower shrunk and faded in the trembling air above her. 

Yes, the air was trembling with heat – it was warmer here, hard to feel because of the speed, but unmistakably hot. The void ahead of her, beyond Zephyros' large head, the void _straight down_ burned up at her, roaring and howling with immortal violence. It was a sun of orange light, blinding, tear-jerking. The air blowing in her face was actually warm, warm like the forge, with an undertone of much more heat. Where they were going it was hotter than in the Tower, hotter than on Everlight, hotter than in the heart of Ruboria. 

She knew multiple stories of fiery hells. Somehow she'd always known she'd end up in one.  
>Just not today. Not like this. Not when she'd thought she'd won. <p>

"_There's never been anything like you, Jinx._" 

She looked up abruptly. Something black moved across the ferocious orange sun filling her entire field of vision, small as a fly. 

"_And there will never be anything like you, after your time._" 

"My time is almost up!" she shrieked against the wild, hot wind. Zephyros was still tumbling down, with blown-back fur and fluttering wings. Every now and then they were almost spread by the pure thermal rising from the blazing heart of the world, but not enough to slow him down. 

So ironic. Falling in water she'd arrived, and falling in fire she'd leave again… forever. 

The fire curved around her. Her eyes stopped watering. All the moisture in her body had evaporated by the feel of it. 

She could only stare, too taken in with the view to do so much as blink. She and Zephyros were now falling between shrouds of fire, and with a massive blow the roar of the flames finally reached her ears. Everywhere around her magma streamed down, from the walls of the Netherworld finally meeting here, in a vertical passage growing narrower and narrower. It wouldn't be long now – soon she'd be unable to avoid the fire any longer. 

Then Zephyros moved beneath her. Jinx abruptly looked down. 

A large, yellowy brown eye looked back at her. But the bat didn't unfold his wings. 

"Zephyros!" she yelled, her voice cracking with the heat. "Take us back up!" 

He didn't obey her. Instead, his gaze returned to the flames, the versatile, orange and white-golden curtains of fire, and he streamlined his body even further. 

"What are you doing?!" 

Then she saw something, or thought to see something, between the blinding, roaring flows of magma and the fire in the heart of the world. Something dark, almost insanely misplaced between all the hellish light. It was there for only a fraction of a second, but not much later it returned, and now it was bigger. 

Zephyros spread his outer wing fingers, so a small part of his wings could catch the air. Their free fall was turned into a steep dive. 

Yes, there was something dark here. There, completely surrounded by flows of magma, was a cave in the side of the Netherworld, miraculously intact, though the rock was cracking and hissing with heat on all sides. The bat manoeuvred between the deadly streams of molten rock, through clouds of steam and the flaming debris from the world above with great agility. 

As they came closer Jinx realized the quivering air had fooled her – the cave wasn't a cave, and it wasn't of the size she'd thought it'd been either. It was a gate, and it was gigantic. 

As the bat finally landed on a strangely polished surface just outside the gaping entrance, two opened doors towered over them, higher than the entrance of the throne room in the Imperial Palace, higher than the gate to Sayron's halls, higher than the Reef Gates, and veined with hellishly blazing flows of magma. This was the largest and most imposing entrance Jinx had ever seen, and she shivered despite the heat – she wasn't dead yet, but this could still very well be the gateway to hell. 

The doors were above their level as well. From the platform stairs led up – stairs with normal steps along the edges, and one single staircase with gigantic steps in the middle, so huge even the Salamander King would have had trouble climbing them. 

What climbed the middle stairs? Who opened the gate? 

Jinx led Zephyros up along one of the outer stairs on claws and wings, and couldn't stop staring. Her desiccated eyes couldn't tear themselves away from the doors, and the darkness beyond them. Behind them the magma falls still roared, hellishly illuminating the platform, but the glow didn't penetrate far beyond the gate. The dark in there was almost tangible. 

Just before the doors Zephyros remained standing, and Jinx couldn't get him to move, no matter what she asked, no matter how she touched his fur and ears. 

She dismounted. 

The bat looked at her for the briefest moment, then flung out his wings and launched himself up, to remain hanging upside down from one of the gigantic doors. 

Jinx stared up once, then clenched her jaws and stepped into the dark.

**(THRONE ROOM)**

The green clan was busy uniting, but the same couldn't be said of the other three. Aches was the unofficial brown leader now, and he couldn't be moved from Sayron's side. His Netherworldly spiked mace let dark blood fly with every blow, and there were quite a few Minions lying at his feet with their skulls bashed in. Not one blue dared venture to that pile, even though they helped up the fallen without discriminating elsewhere in the fight – there was no way of telling whose side the dead had been on. 

Nowhere near all browns followed Aches. An unexpected new leader had arisen on the other side of the clan, a small Minion who'd always had a low status, but who was now so driven, even passionate, the rest could do little else but follow him. In the back of Kniff's throat a suddenly fearsome growl rattled ceaselessly, bursting into an almost insane battle cry at times. His claws and teeth were stained with blood, and even though he should really be collapsing with exhaustion, and he was panting heavier with every passing minute, he kept going with ever more fiery eyes and a savagely flashing weapon. 

At the stairs near the throne another battle was going on. Drawn in by the noise and the Minions running around, Kelda had come down from the private quarters, a huge gleaming battle-axe slung over her shoulder. She'd quickly figured out the situation, and she'd made her choice quite swiftly as well. That hadn't been very hard, as she'd had to fight for her own life almost immediately as she came down, attacked by a furious, flaming apparition with golden eyes. 

Now Kelda and Fay drove one another through the hall with magic and metal, fighting savagely with innate gifts and raw power. Fay wrapped her lianas and nettles around Kelda's neck and arms, but the Nordbergian Mistress immediately hacked herself loose and charged for the elven queen, weapon raised up high and wildly swinging it around. Neither seemed to gain the upper hand. 

Above the throne Gnarl stood staring as if frozen, unable to choose a side or intervene. His role was over now, and would only begin again after this fight had been decided. 

Next to him was the third Mistress, seemingly as calm as could be. Juno was actually busy eating grapes, and offered him a few. Gnarl declined, without even looking at her. 

"Relax, Gnarl. It'll be alright, and whoever wins, they can't do it without you anyway." 

"If Jinx wins, I'd run if I were you," Gnarl remarked tensely. 

"I'm leaving in any case, Minion Master." 

The advisor looked up. "What?" 

"I think my role here is over. Sayron never really cared for me, and no matter which of those two wins…" she nodded down at Kelda and Fay, "they're not going to tolerate me in a million years. And besides, I don't care as much for the Overlord anymore either." 

"But…" Gnarl grimaced. "Well, it'd be a pity." 

Juno lay an elegantly manicured hand on his shoulder. "You'll be alright, Gnarl." 

He looked up at her. She smiled. 

"…Until our next encounter, Juno." 

Juno nodded slowly. Then she raised her head to the portal at the ceiling. "Arcadiopolis." 

A blue flash took her from Gnarl's side, and as the light died away the Minion Master moved his gaze down, to the battle between the remaining two Mistresses. 

Sayron's domain was collapsing without his knowledge – he hadn't even seen it coming.

That was never a good sign.

**(LOWER LEVELS)**

Deeper in the earth Sayron shielded himself from the almost unbearable heat, but his shield barely stayed intact. The floating rock was small enough to manoeuvre between the flows of liquid fire and the scorching steam, but the magma was still too close for Sayron's tastes.  
>The bat was nowhere to be seen. There was a good chance that Jinx, falling without control, had struck the fire and had died here, now nothing more than fluttering ashes in the heart of the world. <p>

But something told him that hadn't happened. Something told him Jinx was still alive, just as she'd survived everything else so far. Something told him the horde leader, the Minion Mistress, had been protected all this time by something shown to him only in glimpses.

Something of the Minions. The deep, dark voice, echoing back to them through the centuries. 

The rock descended, deeper than he'd ever expected to go. He'd been on the top of the world in Nordberg and in the throne room of his father's Tower, and now he was to see the deepest depth as well. What awaited him there? He'd thought the Last Sanctuary to be the deepest point of his travels, and there the Salamander King had been waiting for him, living heat covered in red scales... shadow and fire. But the touch of that scaly skin hadn't been half as scorching as the fire surrounding him now, and his roar hadn't instilled as much fear in him as the voice that'd spoken to him as the rock had started its descent. 

What awaited in the deepest darkness?

**(DEPTHS)**

Jinx walked through the giant dark passage beyond the gate alone. Almost immediately after she'd passed the doors the golden light of the magma behind her had dimmed, and she'd been forced to summon a purple flame to light her way. She felt very small and lonely, without Zephyros, without Minions, without anyone to stand by her. 

Was this fleeing from Sayron or the discovery of something she could not resist? Had she ever really tried to let Zephyros return to the Tower so she could help the Minions? But did she want to? Wasn't this much more urgent? 

_Falling._ That was what Kniff had said, just before he'd awoken from his strange trance, a few days before they'd marched to Arcadiopolis. 

_There is a form in the deep darkness._

Her fingers stroked along the black rock walls, warm, almost burning with the heat flowing behind them. For a moment she thought she felt a heartbeat beneath her hands. Her purple light cast strange, enormous, trembling shadows in front of her. Things seemed to shoot away in the dark, just outside her violet ring of light... 

Fever, Stabbit, Goudvis. Three Minions who grew wings and vanished without leaving bodies. The three-headed dragon above the throne, looking down on them with golden eyes... 

_Are Fever, Stabbit and Goudvis gods?_

And then her purple light suddenly fell into a much larger space. 

A gigantic cave opened before her, too tall to see the ceiling, too broad to see the walls. Jinx was still standing in deep darkness, but now she no longer felt the tunnel walls around her. It was fearsome, to stand in emptiness like this, as if she was adrift in measureless, inky black water. 

_There is a form in the deep darkness._

She slowly stepped forward. She still thought she could hear things, just outside her vision, scratching and fluttering in the dark. 

Then her purple light fell upon a figure. She froze. 

It was a man, and he stood with his back turned to her. Long, dark hair fell down his back in complicated braids. He was clad in rich, blood-red fabrics, fastened on his shoulders with two small, elongated skulls, and his skin was as dark as his hair. As he slowly turned and looked at her, however, Jinx stared into eyes much like her own; glowing and with the colour of molten, liquid gold – but inky black-lined. His gaze was hypnotic. 

Jinx swallowed. "Who... who are you?" Her voice seemed to be drowned by the darkness around her. 

The man smiled at her, sending shivers across Jinx' spine but making her glow on the inside at the same time. "My name is Taegan, my dearest Minion Mistress. Welcome to my Temple. I've heard much about you." 

"Taegan…" She knew that name. She racked her brains, and then she knew – that name was engraved over and over in the hard basalt of the Black Gate. 

"I'm glad you made it." As he spoke Taegan's voice changed from sweet as honey into something else, something raspy. At the same time his face changed. His dark, Ruborian skin turned to actual black, his ears grew long and pointy, his teeth sharper. Claws appeared at his fingertips. Then the change quickened, and in a whirl of darkness a Minion suddenly stood before her – the most imposing Minion she'd ever seen. Giblet and Stripe had mopped the floor with her, but Jinx knew this Minion didn't even have to move to kill her. 

The Minion had ivory horns, elegantly curving up from his forehead. Between them, a red flame flickered. 

_But the Three-headed One is also a Minion, a Minion with black skin and horns between which a wild fire dances. He outstretches his hand..._

An invitingly outstretched hand, with slender black fingers and snowy white, razor-sharp claws. Jinx could do nothing else but reach back to him. 

The Minion grinned. And then she knew his black-lined eyes, even in this face. She knew him, as he knew her. 

Then he vanished, just before she'd been able to touch him. Where he'd been a red, green and blue gust whirled around each other, to suddenly fly up at the ceiling with dazzling speed. On their way they lit the darkness with more power than Jinx' fire could ever have done. 

The three gusts of colour came to a halt, all three in strange, elongated patterns. Patterns that _moved_. 

Jinx narrowed her eyes. She'd almost figured out what towered over her. 

The Temple steadily grew lighter as an omnipresent golden glow slowly flared, but a dark form still remained before her. Darkness incarnate. 

The Three-headed One. 

Towering above her, so very far above her, was a form covered in iridescent black scales. She stood between his front claws, a tiny, insignificant figure in his shadow. His massive, armoured chest was larger and broader than the throne room. The glowing colours had rearranged in patterns along his three necks, slightly curving down at her; necks bearing large, dark, horned heads. All three of them had narrow golden eyes without pupils. In the maw of the left one was a glowing, devouring fire, orange and flaring like the heart of the world. The middle one growled so deeply Jinx felt rather than heard it, and green gas swirled in his maw. White, icy mist fumed down the jaws of the last one. 

Taegan. The Three-headed, Unholy Lord. The Dragon Deity. The reason Vergal Garghan was called the Dragon's Son. 

Jinx slowly staggered back, too aghast to be frightened. 

"_Jinx!_" 

She couldn't look back, even though she knew the voice resounding now, from the gigantic entrance to Taegan's Temple. She realized faintly it was indeed a temple – higher up in the walls alcoves were carved out, hallways, stairs and more. Figures stood looking down on them there, black figures with yellow eyes, and she could hear the faint rushing of leathery wings. These were black Minions. This was Gnarl's kind. 

"You know me," the deep, dark voice resounded, resonating though the rock on which she stood. "You fought by my side." 

"Fever, Stabbit, Goudvis," Jinx uttered. "You?" 

"You know who I am." 

Sayron staggered into the Temple, staring up at the giant apparition. He recognized the deep, dark voice. He could barely grasp what he was seeing. But he realized, _knew_, here and now, Jinx indeed knew the apparition, and had known what was going on with the three winged Minions for a while. And she'd kept it all silent. Another lie… she'd never really been on his side – simply on the Netherworld's side. 

The three heads rose up, and the gargantuan black wings rippled and rushed behind the three necks. Sayron couldn't help but slowly come closer. 

"I am a god, as Jinx once suspected. I am the god of the Minions, not of the Overlords. I was the one to convince Vergal, Atrej and Synn to lead the Minions. In those days I showed myself freely, but as they fell I've mainly been busy with manipulation from a distance." A deep chuckle made the hall tremble. The heads bent down, and the golden eyes flashed; giant lights in the air, in heads of six meters wide. 

"Young rulers, I am everything you should be. I am Destruction, Madness and Domination. I am the Evil within you." 

Jinx was still staring up at him, barely conscious of her half-brother – her enemy – behind her. "But that was Sayron. He did the destroying, causing chaos and brainwashing people… I can't do that. I'm worth nothing to you." 

The heads came even closer, and Jinx could feel her right side being warmed and her left chilling. She didn't cover her mouth against the breath of the middle, poisonous head. The Dragon Deity didn't need poison to kill her. 

"But yes, young horde leader. Didn't you blow heads from human shoulders? Didn't you orchestrate a fluent infiltration and the most beautiful food fight since way too long? That was a good one, Minion Mistress. And didn't you make an Everlightian giant bat completely yours, heart and soul?" 

"Zephyros?" Jinx frowned, despite everything. "Completely mine?" She froze, her eyes open wide. "Did I…" 

The icy head laughed, a cold, humourless sound. "In the Arena you tried to get him to calm down with magic, but you never realized that was the moment he became so much friendlier, did you?" 

"Zeph," she whispered. _Dominated. He's not the same bat. He's not loyal by himself. That's why he protected me from his own kind and left his colony…_

"You are _both_ magnificent candidates." Metal footsteps announced Sayron's approach, and Jinx slowly turned, numb with revelations. 

_Am I nothing more than an experiment? My mother's revenge? A test? What do I have left that's real at all? What do I have left?_

The Overlord stepped forward, his eyes blazing red, first narrowed at her, then rising to meet those of the Dragon Deity. "What do you want of us?" 

The heads ascended again. "I haven't shown myself since the Darklords. It's time to intervene in Minion business actively again – the business of Overlords. You both have grown during your little adventures, but this is the moment for the ultimate Overlord to prove themselves. The one who wins in my eyes wins the Netherworld, the throne, the hordes… and their life." The golden eyes narrowed, all six of them. "In my eyes you've fallen recently, Sayron, but you were promising… and you, Jinx, you've been rising for a while, from humble beginnings. This is the final test. Prove yourselves." 

"I wish for nothing more, my Lord," Jinx muttered, unsheathing her sword. Sayron abruptly turned to her, and then furiously looked up at the three heads. "_Why?!_" he roared. His voice echoed through the hall, pain, loss and fury clearly audible in his cry. 

"Because two individuals have a right to the throne, and it's supposed to be one," the fiery head spoke. "To create twice the chaos," the poisonous one hissed. "Because I want absolute power in the world again, and that starts with the ruling Overlord," the icy one chuckled. 

"Sayron," Jinx spoke, and a rasping tone crept into her voice, a Minion's tone. "You have singlehandedly taken everything from me that still connected me to the upper world. All I have left now are the hordes. And Vessperion's name, I will fight for them." 

The Overlord turned towards her. "Maybe I will keep leading the Minions," he hissed, his eyes again almost white with rage. "Maybe I'll have them rebuild Arcadiopolis into the greatest city the world has ever seen, seat of power of the new Emperor, and I'll take up Florian's little hobby, to make all magic in the world my own." 

"That'd be a nice hobby," Taegan remarked. 

Jinx gripped her sword more tightly. "The world is not big enough for both of us," she growled, her pointy ears flattened. A purple flame flared in the palm of her hand, illuminating the Temple a bit more brightly. Sayron took his own weapon off his back and let the lightning burst to life. 

Then Vessperion's children threw themselves against one another, and the hall rang with their battle.  
><strong>(THRONE ROOM)<strong>

In the throne room other battles went on undiminished. It wasn't clear which side of the Minions was winning, and also in the heart of the hall, where the ground grew increasingly slippery with all the blood which had mingled with Velvet's from the start, Fay nor Kelda had won victory yet. Kelda was hacking away at Fay with such ferocity it seemed she was led by blind fury only, but there was method to her violence – the Nordbergian Mistress had experience, gained in the hunt, a kind of experience Fay lacked completely. But that fact was diminished by Kelda's lack of experience with Fay's methods. The elven queen almost exclusively used magic to battle, and stalks and leaves and roots reached towards the ginger Mistress from the walls and the free parts of the black marble floor, in attempt to make her trip or suffocate. Kelda knew she'd be as good as dead were she to fall, or come too close to the walls; some stalks were strong enough to not only strangle her but also lift her off the ground completely to plainly hang her. 

But her axe was sharp, and her hatred for Fay didn't know any limits yet. Her green eyes spat fire, and her axe already dripped with the blood of a few Minions she'd taken down casually just now. They'd been fighting Kniff and the horde around him, so she'd known they were on Sayron's side. 

"I may not care for him anymore, but you didn't have the right to take Sayron from me," she yelled at Fay. "You belong with the light! You never had any business here!" With every word the axe cleaved through the air, leaving behind silver light and dark blood. Once she managed to graze Fay, across a pale arm, and the wound immediately started to bleed with a startling red, as red as her hair.

The elven Mistress only smiled. "Sayron showed me what I truly am, Nordbergian. My true destiny lies here, by his side. He's going to win, and I will be his Queen, now and forever." She outstretched a slender hand, and a strangling vine shot directly from her fingers, to Kelda's neck and around it. The Nordbergian Mistress tried to cleave through the base of the liana with her weapon, but another stalk snatched the handle from her grip. Kelda grasped at it, then at her throat, but the vine didn't let go. It only tightened. 

"Farewell, Kelda," Fay smiled.

**(DEPTHS)**

This wasn't at all like the only other time she'd fought Sayron, as she was honing her magic aboard the _Shadow Bringer_, voyaging towards the Empire. That time he'd been careful – in so far as he was aware of that concept. That time she'd wanted to learn from him. 

This time she wanted to _hurt_ him… as much as she could. This time she wanted to kill him. She'd hated Marius with all her heart because of what he'd done to her, because of what the Empire had done to her mother, but that rage was nothing compared to what she felt for Sayron now. He'd killed Velvet and he'd kill the Minions if given the chance, she knew that for certain, no matter how much the Three-headed One above them claimed to be impartial. 

Beneath the three vigilant, dark heads the two fought each other. Magic crackled away from them in nacre waves, completely merged in explosions of blue and purple, crackling and flickering. Metal clashed against metal. 

Sayron was enormous – even taller than she remembered now she fought against him instead of walking or fighting at his side. It was fearsome, despite her rage, to feel his power used against her. With every one of his blows she was thrown back a bit when she was able to shield herself, or she broke a few bones she was barely able to heal in time when she couldn't. She managed to pay him back, with cuts across his arms, and a few torn-off pieces of his armour. Her magic was her best chance. She danced around him, faster and more agile than he was, and assaulted him with purple fire from all sides. He let loose his own magic as well, however. The Temple glowed with their combined powers. 

In the new light Jinx could make out a circle-shaped hollow in the floor, as if to house a mist pool like the trap door housed the one in the Tower. And as a blow from Sayron's mace flung her away and made her smack to the floor with countless bleeding injuries, she noticed up very close how the entire underground was covered in runes, of the same type as on the Black Gate. 

_I don't have time for this._

She hoisted herself up, sprinted past Sayron, tried not to panic as she heard and felt his heavy metal footsteps thud down behind her, and ran for one of the Temple's walls. Not high above her head lay an alcove, separated from the main hall by slender pillars, where the countless black Minions stood watching, with varying degrees of interest in their eyes.

She jumped, her new feet giving her more power than before. As she ran behind the black Minions she kicked off her boots. Her new claws clicked on the Temple's polished basalt. Minions turned to look at her, and a buzz rose from their dark, winged ranks. 

_Is Gnarl with them? Whose side is he on? Did he know about this?_

"Jinx!" Sayron roared up at her. "I thought you wanted to defeat me? Here I stand!" 

_Why did I drop my ropes? Why?_

"I am going to defeat you, Sayron," she shouted back. "My way…" 

She had to get closer to him. He wasn't wearing his helmet. She could slit his throat with her sword. But to do that, she had to break through his defences – the lightning, the mace, his own beastly power. 

She broke through the ranks of the black Minions and launched herself out between the pillars, into the Temple, towards Sayron.

**(THRONE ROOM)**

Minions grew exhausted on all sides. Blood still flew around everywhere, as exhausted Minions often only fought harder and more recklessly than rested ones, but more and more started to die all around. Kniff was still very active, but wherever he looked he saw familiar faces lying lifelessly; Drip, Sear, Trickle, Rampus, Ramul. Whisper was still alive and tried to turn the tide with the help of his clan, but every Minion in the throne room now fought for the very highest cause they could imagine: their Master. 

In the heart of the hall Kelda still hung in Fay's strangling vine. Her face had reddened with the effort it took to stay conscious, but her grip on the stalk weakened with every passing second. As thorns broke through the vine's gleaming skin she didn't even react. Fay grinned cruelly and readied herself to use more force still. 

"_Fay of Everlight, you are needed elsewhere._" 

The elven queen abruptly looked up. Her eyes betrayed a new emotion – fear. "What…?" 

"_There are powers that'll be very unhappy if I keep you here. The charming Nordbergian was right. You have no business here, Lady of the Light._" 

Something widened Fay's eyes. A light reflected in her golden gaze, a light only she could see, or maybe it was inside of her. 

"_Be free, milady. Return to your Mother._" 

The vine and Kelda's body fell down limply, as did Fay's hands. Hands that suddenly no longer were pale as porcelain, but started to glow, gleam with a light of their own. 

A few Minions looked up, on both sides, astonishment on their faces. Before their eyes Fay transformed; her hair first darkened to black and then started to glow with a bluish light, her widened eyes first turned green, then sky-blue, and even her clothes started to radiate an unworldly glow. 

Before their eyes Sayron's third Mistress turned back into the elven queen she'd been before Orntal, the shining ruler, the Lady of the Light. 

And Fay blinked in bewilderment, stared at her blood-stained hands, clasped them to her mouth and vanished in a blinding blue flame. 

Kelda remained lying in the middle of the hall, and moved no more. 

"_Light magic must always have a place in this world…_"

**(DEPTHS)**

Unaware of the events in the throne room, Sayron still hacked and whirled and stomped away in Taegan's Temple, under the vigilant eye of the enormous Dragon Deity. He hadn't even noticed the Three-headed One had been briefly distracted, and a bluish light had played over the iridescent scales. The Overlord was far too busy trying to kill his half-sister, but the fight grew to resemble a swift, agile dance he didn't know the steps of more and more. He'd managed to strike Jinx a few times, and injured her, but she healed just as easily and she stayed away from him more as well. She hadn't been able to seriously wound him either, just cut him superficially with her – compared to his weapon – small sword, and the sting of her magic. His lightning shields protected him well enough, but that did mean he couldn't use his active magic as quickly as he wanted. 

Even without her ropes Jinx was at the advantage near the walls; every now and then she ran up them and landed behind him, and the major part of the time she subsequently tried to stab him in the back. He was fast enough to avoid that, however. He knew what she was trying to do. As he'd removed his helmet back in the Arena he hadn't been expecting he'd be attacked afterwards, but he cursed himself for it now. His neck was uncomfortably bare, and a good target – in fact, the only target she had on his entire armoured body. 

He wouldn't let it happen that easily. He planned to exhaust her, so he could crush her afterwards with a few well-aimed blows from his mace, break her… erase the mistake he'd made by letting her enter his domain, his horde, his heart. 

_She served you well, Sayron. Why not keep letting her in?_

"She's a Minion now," he growled to the deep voice ringing through his head. "She's everything I want to let go. And as long as she lives, I can't let go." 

_I'd be careful saying such things here, Overlord. The only chance of eternal life lies in the darkness, with me._

"I don't have to live forever. I just want to be…" 

…_human?_

"Maybe I do!" 

_You have an interesting way of showing affection to those people, young Lord._

"I united them behind my banner," the Overlord gnashed as he tried to drive Jinx into a corner, but failed. He did keep her away from his neck as she dared to fall out. "It's not my fault it was the black banner." 

_You were so promising, Sayron._

The suddenly accusing tone almost made him falter. Jinx almost had her chance. 

He flung a bolt of lightning her way, but he could feel his muscles protest after the battle of the past day, even with the healing power from the Tower Heart he'd taken in halfway through. He couldn't go on much longer. 

**(THRONE ROOM)**

The blue light of Fay's departure had shaken up the throne room. Something had happened to the Minions; the ones fighting for Sayron had jolted, their morale struck now it had become apparent there was something big that wasn't on their side. Even if Kelda was the only one helped by it, it wasn't sure what more might happen. 

Orange light shone in through the gaping hole behind the throne and reflected off weapons and in yellow eyes, wild, and in some cases fearful. The Minions on Sayron's side started noticing they were outnumbered, many of the fiercest among them were dead, and the ones they'd always thought of as weak now showed more power and speed than ever before. Kniff growled, his eyes narrow and his ears more ragged than before, and behind him the rest got ready for a last crushing exertion. Simmer and his salamander, on the wall behind them, let their fire ignite in their hands and elongated maw. Soaker hoisted up fallen warriors one after the other. Scabies grinned at his opponents, his swords sharpened and gleaming. A little way further Minc threatened one of the opponents with a strung arrow very close to his face, until he scrambled back and joined the other side. 

This was the case for more Minions on Sayron's side. The red, green and blue leaders were on Jinx' hand, and where the majority went, the minority eventually went as well, in the end. There were only a few still resisting. 

As Kniff saw the crossing over, his ears relaxed first, then the rest of his face – a little bit.

Then he slowly lowered his weapon. He mainly looked surprised. He couldn't really grasp his cause had succeeded, he'd led a group successfully for the first time, he was still alive… 

Then, at the moment a larger brown Minion passed him, he suddenly felt a crushing pain in his side. He flew back, leaving flying splashes of blood. Immediately new blows followed, to his shoulders, his chest, his head. He jumped out of the way and stabbed his dagger down, struck something hard and heard a cry. 

Aches slid away from him across the slippery, bloodied floor. Kniff panted and pressed a claw to his side. He felt dizzy – the larger Minion had had much power left. 

Now he lay motionless, however. Kniff stepped forward, leaving red drops with every step.

The rest of Sayron's Minions didn't seem to be fighting back any longer. 

Then the Minion with the black-plumed helmet kicked away one last time, snatched Kniff's own dagger from his claw and rammed it through his chest. As Aches pulled back the weapon both Minions fell down with a thud, close to the heart of the hall. Aches' fingers twitched for a moment, but then a colourfully feathered arrow from Minc's bow brought an end to it. 

Kniff shivered and fell silent. His blood flowed from the gaping hole in his chest, towards the trapdoor. For a while all was silent around him, then the soft sound of countless rasping voices started anew. The one who'd started this battle first, almost a year ago, might be dead, but he'd reached his goal. The horde had united. They weren't all equally glad, but the Minions were on Jinx' side.

**(DEPTH'S)**

In Taegan's Temple Jinx wasn't aware of her victory in the Tower. She was too exhausted to think, to even process anything, even if the Dragon Deity would have notified her in person.

The same applied to Sayron. The two still circled one another, casting magic or attacking directly every now and then, but neither accomplished much anymore. It wouldn't be long now. One of the two would die soon. 

Jinx was exhausted, but she was still faster than Sayron. She knew he was on to her, but she still tried to land on his shoulders, the shoulders he'd hoisted her up on himself earlier that night, in his triumph. 

Sayron's defence and evasive movements became increasingly slow and tired, and holes fell in his defence. He was panting heavier than ever. His armour felt as if boulders had been attached to it; he could barely even lift his arms. 

He stared at Jinx, not from within a metal helmet but from beneath the pale strands of his hair. She was panting as well, but her golden eyes still burned from within that changed face; that Minion face. They shone with undiminished energy, it seemed. She was fighting for the only thing she had left in and under the world. 

The only thing he had that still burned that brightly was the amber gem. His eyes felt extinguished, even his fury had shrunk to a pilot light… 

…the amber gem. 

The Overlord's thoughts raced back to the day Gnarl had first told him of Jinx and her arrival in the Netherworld. Mortis had brought her back to life with brown life force, the advisor had said, something that didn't usually work on humans. Blue Minions couldn't bring other creatures back from the dead, only heal them. The grey Minion had assumed the girl hadn't been really dead, only unconscious or still dying. 

But she had been dead. Blues indeed couldn't bring back other creatures – only Minions. 

Jinx was a Minion. 

And Minions were under his command, his control. Their whole life. _And their death._

Sayron slowed, created a huge hole in his defence. He lowered his arms, and the mace he clutched in his hands. He panted, so heavily his shoulders heaved. Jinx faltered briefly, surprised with this sudden display of weakness. Then she stormed forward, her sword at the ready, in a last burst of pure willpower. 

The horde leader jumped up and landed on Sayron's neck. She raised up her sword, let it whizz down sideways toward her half-brother's unprotected neck… 

…and Sayron let go of his own weapon, reached behind his head with his left hand, and struck Jinx' breastplate with the palm of his hand. The jewel in his gauntlet flared. 

Jinx' breath faltered. Her eyes widened. 

_That's it. Well, done, young Lord._

A golden glow detached itself from the horde leader's chest. Her clawed fingers relaxed, her sword clattered down. And then Sayron yanked back his hand, the gleaming orb of light still between his fingers… and Jinx' eyes grew glassy, her last breath whispered on her lips, and she died.

**General Herbison stands watch in the throne room as Kniff and the Minions loyal to Jinx are victorious. Then he casts his eyes to the floor as he feels the death.**

**Maraxus: Jinx… NOOOOOOOOO!**

**Death surrounds the battle. Kelda has fallen. Jinx was defeated by Sayron. Juno fled. Fay returned to the light. Now Sayron will rise from the depths as Overlord of all.**

**Maraxus: I will miss you Jinx and I will mourn you… but with your death my loyalty is now purely to the Overlord.**

**He contacts his army on the surface: Attention all troops, Minion Mistress Jinx is dead. All hail Overlord Sayron. Please review readers… with something nice for the beloved Jinx and her creator, Sunjinjo.**


	42. Behind the Net

**As the battle draws to a close General Herbison sighs: I really thought Jinx could beat him.**

**Gnarl pats his knee: It's over now. Jinx is dead and your loyalty is to Overlord Sayron.**

**Maraxus: I know, but all the same… we watched this young woman grow into a worthy leader of the Dark Domain only for a sibling rivalry to tear her apart. Ah well. I'm going now.**

**Gnarl: Where?**

**Maraxus: The surface world. I will inform my soldiers of what has transpired and that Jinx is dead.**

**Gnarl: Alright, do the disclaimer first though.**

**Maraxus: I do not own this story, it belongs to the ever gracious Sunjinjo on deviantart who has kindly allowed me to post her story here along with her OCs. Enjoy.**

**Behind the Net**

Two dark, huge shapes rose from the immortal fire, back up to the Netherworld Tower, like dark phoenixes. One of them was surrounded by a cage of blue lightning, and steadily beat enormous wings. The lightning was connected to one hand of Lord Sayron, standing atop the floating rock. In his other hand he clutched the front of a black-haired girl's shirt. Her golden eyes were closed, and all her muscles were slack. She wasn't breathing, and if someone was to check her pulse, they wouldn't find any. 

As the rock docked at the Tower, the Minions swarmed out over the prow platform, but they backed away as they saw who was standing upright, and who hung limply in the grasp of the other. Lord Sayron raised his fist, lifting Jinx up high and showing the amber gem at the same time. The golden stone flashed, and the Minions shrunk back, their ears held low, their eyes cast down. Some of them growled as if in pain. 

At a short command, however, some of them did circle the giant bat. For a moment it seemed as if Zephyros was going to resist, attack the hordes, but then he remembered, almost heard Jinx' voice.

"_All Minions are friends. Everything looking and smelling like him… you can´t eat them._" 

And the rough fur flattened itself, and the bared teeth disappeared. Zephyros let himself be chained and taken away by the Minions. Not much later a heavy door closed in the dungeons, lower in the Tower, and darkness enveloped the bat. A pitiful wail echoed through the lower levels.

… 

"Jinxie?" 

Somewhere, far away, two grey eyes opened. 

In the gloom before her a familiar face smiled. Glowing amber eyes in the dark… 

Jinx gasped for breath and laughed at the same time. "Kniff?" She wiped across her face and took in her surroundings. "I'm… alive?" 

She and the Minion were somewhere underground, in a burrow of cold earth. The air was warm, however, and the breathing of many hairy bodies got through to her. A wolf burrow. The wolf burrow where they'd found shelter, so long ago, as Kniff had saved her from freezing to death in the Nordbergian wilderness on the back of one of the animals. When she hadn't yet been a horde leader, when she wasn't Vessperion's daughter. When the Netherworld didn't smile upon her yet, but didn't try to erase her for what she was, or could become, either. 

"Supposed to be you." 

Jinx turned back to the Minion before her, sitting against the earth wall of the burrow. Kniff looked at her affectionately. "Jinxie, you should be Mistress. Leader. Of all clans." 

"I tried, Kniff." Jinx sighed. "With everything I had in me. It wasn't enough." 

The Minion came closer, and looked up at her seriously, his hands on the ground. "Won hearts of clans. They fought for you. Was there." His eyes gleamed, with joy, and pride. "We won, Jinxie. We _won._" 

Jinx blinked, and for a moment she couldn't find her voice, suddenly choking something back.  
>"Beat Aches, and Scythe. Won over others. Fay left. We won." <p>

"Oh, Kniff…" Jinx swallowed, and could no longer keep her own tears at bay as she saw they were rolling from the corners of Kniff's eyes as well. He took her hands in his. "You won't leave," he spoke, his voice suddenly rough. 

"Never." 

"Be strong, Jinxie." His expression changed as he suddenly clenched his jaws and there was no trace of his smile any longer. "Be strong for us, and for Unholy. You have more hearts to win, Jinx." 

The girl jolted as Kniff's voice changed, and she realized something else was once again speaking through him. She now knew who. "L-Lord." 

"Just as there is life beyond death for you, there is life for me, in a dead place. Rivers lead to many places. It should be you. Don't disappoint me again." 

"What do you mean?" 

Kniff – or Taegan – fell silent. The clawed hands let go of hers. Jinx looked around her as the earth walls of the burrow faded to black. 

"Please!" 

The yellow eyes were the last thing she could still see. They narrowed. Then the darkness swallowed those last slits of light too. 

"_Kniff!_" 

She fell through the dark, arms and legs spread and unable to move them, and then suddenly there was pain. 

Terrible pain.

The golden life force was sucked into the motionless girl's body like water into a sponge. For a moment there was no reaction at all, but then her chest moved, very slightly. 

"She's coming back, Sire," a hissing voice whispered. 

"Good," Lord Sayron growled. He looked on intently as his former horde leader groaned, and her head rolled from side to side across the wood. Then her yellow eyes sprung open, and filled with horror. She tried to move her arms, but quickly found out she couldn't. The steel bands restrained her excellently. 

Pinned on the rack, and with the lights of four Sentinels focused on her, there was nothing Jinx could do. Briefly she managed to bear the pain, but then her first raw screams echoed through the dungeons. 

Jinx had never screamed like this, not in the heat of battle, not when her arm had almost been amputated in the Reef, not when she'd been run through completely in Orntal. This pain, caused only by Sentinels, was the most intense and terrible she'd ever known or would know, and now she was completely helpless against it. Four of them, this close, and the part of her that could still think recognized the two misshapen individuals from the Palace – the strongest two, the first two. The first time she'd dealt with those two she'd fainted immediately, but she couldn't now – something kept her awake. She'd never wanted to die again this badly. 

She threw back her head, and without being able to help it her mouth opened wide, her sharp teeth useless now. Her scream faltered. 

"We're almost there, Sire," the whispering voice spoke. 

Sayron looked on as a purple light bloomed in the convulsively jerking hands of his half-sister, and then in her eyes and gaping mouth as well. This was the procedure magical creatures had had to go through in the Empire. Physically separating magic from the body was excruciating, but not impossible. 

"I'm going to take away what you stole from my magic room, Jinx," Sayron hissed to the girl, very close to her ear. "I'm going to take everything from you. Your life last." 

Her staring, glowing eyes couldn't see him. The light shining forth from them whirled up, and joined together with the strands of light from her mouth and hands. A glowing purple orb of magic floated above her convulsing body for a moment, undulating slightly, subtly moving back to her bearer… 

Then Sayron reached out, and the amber gem pulled the purple light in. A few stray sparks whirled down his arm, and then every trace of purple had vanished from the room. 

For a moment the Overlord let the red lights linger on her weakly jolting body, then he raised a hand. The Sentinels dimmed their lights. 

Jinx let out a weak, drawn-out sound. Her eyes were still open, but they weren't seeing anything. Every now and then a jolt still coursed through her body. 

Sayron bent over her. "I've caught your bat and Kniff is dead," he muttered. "And he'll stay in the Well forever, floating in darkness." 

Tears rolled down Jinx' face, disappearing in her hair. They kept coming, even though her face and body were motionless. 

Sayron turned around. "Throw her in a cell," he commanded. "Tomorrow I'll execute her properly."

**(LOWER LEVELS/CELLS)**

_Thud._

With a dull blow her body landed on a hard, cold stone floor. She rolled over and remained lying there, her face to the wall, unable to move. Her arms were outstretched, as if she was reaching for something, but she could barely even move her fingers. 

Behind her a heavy door smashed shut. The sound echoed around the cell briefly, then there were only footsteps, disappearing slowly. 

It took a long while before Jinx had regained control over her body, and even when she sat up slowly, she still occasionally convulsed. Everything hurt. She shrunk down, her arms wrapped around her knees, her back against a rough wall. 

For minutes, she stared at her hands with the strangely misplaced claws, trying her hardest to conjure up purple sparks. She moved her fingers, as the tears ran down her cheeks, but with all her willpower she couldn't make them come back. Her magic was gone. She shivered, and clasped her hands to her face. 

She'd become what she'd been when she'd come to the Netherworld. Her armour had been taken away, and she was only wearing rough pants and a shirt now. She'd never see Zephyros or Kniff again. Her mother was dead. For years, she'd thought Velvet had died in the Empire, and just a few months after their reunion she'd been taken away for good. She had nothing left. 

All she had were memories of what had been. 

The icy cold of Nordberg... her encounters with the horde, her training sessions with Parch and Giblet. The travels across Everlight, how she'd claimed her position as a horde leader. The Empire, and the confrontation of her old enemies and fears. The Wasteland, the mutations, the despair. The battles, the victories, her growing bond with Sayron. All that time it'd been destined for everything to be torn apart in the end. She'd had everything, just to lose it all, just after her greatest victory. 

It could have been minutes or hours that Jinx was lost in her memories, curled up in a corner of her cell. 

Eventually she rose, her eyes empty, her body powerless. 

_You have more hearts to win._

In the wall of her cell was a small window, blocked off by thick bars. It offered her a view of the void outside the Tower, with the wall of the great cave far away, crossed by rivers and lava flows, lit from below by an orange glow. 

Killing and surviving, controlling cities and leading hordes. Destroying and dominating, and even practicing the required madness. 

During all her adventures and trials she'd learned everything an Overlord needed. She'd carried out many of Sayron's tasks for him, even taken over some permanently. She could have been an Overlord. She'd wanted to stay with the Minions, more than anything. Even if everything else was taken from her, if she could have stayed with the clans none of it would have mattered. 

But that was impossible now. She'd never fight beside the Minions again, never sleep in a barrack again, never run across walls with spiders and salamanders again. She'd be executed the next morning... this time, there was no escape. Now it was Sayron who wanted her dead. 

_There is life in a dead place._

She sunk down, below the window. It was over.

**(PRIVATE QUARTERS)**

Hundreds of meters higher Sayron stepped into his enormous bed. A little distance away, in another bed covered with thick furs, lay a smaller figure, unconscious. Short red hair stood out between the fur. 

Kelda hadn't woken up, and might never do so again. 

Sayron sighed. He hadn't known what he had. Until he'd lost it all. 

Kelda. Jinx. It hurt to lose them… both of them. 

But he couldn't turn back. He couldn't turn back what he'd done, what Jinx had done, what it would mean for him if Jinx survived. 

He realized very well he had a choice. He could let the pain come through; all the pain caused by his collapsed domain, his lost Mistresses, the look in Gnarl's eyes every time he looked at him. Or he could give in to his fury towards the Minions and Jinx. 

He'd spent the entire day laying siege to Arcadiopolis, and the entire night battling his half-sister. He was more than bone tired. 

But however brief his rest would be, when he would wake up, he'd kill Jinx for good. And in his fury he knew exactly how.

**(CELLS)**

Jinx didn't know how long she'd sat against the wall, half asleep, but in the end there was the click of the lock. The heavy door to her cell swung open. A red light fell inside, and all her muscles protested as she shrunk back in pain. The Sentinel stepped in, shining on her all the while. Behind him two brown Minions followed. Jinx only looked up at them as they hoisted her to her feet and bound her hands behind her back with tight knots in a rough rope. She recognized them as Minc and Scabies.

As they dragged her from the cell, the Sentinel dimmed his light. 

"Sorry, Jinx," the pirate muttered. "Have no choice. Sayron has gem." 

"_Could_ free you," Minc hissed, a bit more fiercely. 

"How far would I get?" Jinx mumbled. "It's not worth the effort." 

"Can we do... something?" Scabies whispered, his ears low as Minc and him dragged her through the halls. The Sentinel stepped after them, ready to activate his light again. 

Jinx sighed and bowed her head, her eyes on the black floor. Then she clenched her jaws. She exchanged glances with the two browns. In her eyes they saw what she meant, and they nodded silently. _Save them. It doesn't matter what happens to me, but...  
><em> 

_...I hadn´t ever expected the ones I love most in this world to be a Minion and a bat._

Minc's eyes flared. 

The climb up the stairs to throne room level was long, and painful for Jinx, but eventually they stood before the gateway to the great hall. Sayron was waiting for her there, and he snatched her from the Minions' grip as soon as she came within his reach. Then he pushed her onto the floating rock, stumbling as she went. Minc followed her hurriedly, as Scabies disappeared to the lower levels again. 

Without another word, they departed across the void.

Scabies ran down the stairs, much faster than he'd climbed them. Not much later he was back in the dungeons, and sprinting towards Zephyros' enormous cell. This room had been designed to house trolls and dragons, and the restrained giant bat, chained as he was, hadn't so much as scratched the dark rock walls. He crawed as Scabies entered, confused and not too trusting. 

"Jinx' last wish," the pirate spoke. He hurriedly started unchaining the beast. If someone would find him now, they'd both be dead. "Lucky Sayron was too tired to kill you," he remarked. "Only now able to execute Jinx." 

The yellowy brown eyes widened. An enormous wing unfolded and stroked across the dark wall. Scabies backed away. "Taking you to upper world…" 

But before he knew it the bat had taken him in his maw, dropped back onto wings and foot claws, and the great beast darted out of the cell. The hall outside was barely high enough for him, but Zephyros managed to inch forward, until he reached a passage leading to the outside of the Tower. There he put the Minion down, and spread his wings completely. 

With a cry and the beating of leathery membranes Zephyros kicked away from the Tower.

The floating rock docked at the Barracks. Sayron dragged Jinx along, past the hanging homes of the browns, the lava flows of the reds, the hanging Hive of the greens and the waterfall of the blues.

Deeper and deeper into Minion territory they went, and the farther they went, the more Minions they attracted. Not one of them dared to come closer, but they were all there, all the Minions Jinx had come to know, all the Minions who'd spawned since her arrival, all the Minions she'd selected and trained, who'd saved her life many times over, and the other way around. 

_We_ won, _Jinxie._

The Minions were on her side, but that did no longer matter. Sayron had them in the palm of his hand. The life force within them obeyed the bearer of the amber gem, she'd learned that up very close. He could kill them all on the spot if he wanted to. No Overlord had ever used that power, and she wasn't about to let it come that far. If she had to die for the Minions, she would. 

They passed Mortis' stalactite, and still they walked on. Closer and closer to the furious stream, the underground river. The place where it'd all started, where she'd been fished ashore dripping and unconscious - _dead._

Here she'd meet her end, then. With bound hands in the stream. Behind the net at last. 

Sayron gripped her by the throat and lifted her off the ground.

Minc had followed the Overlord most of the way, but not all of it. At Mortis' stalactite he'd slipped away, and he'd dragged out the colourless swimmer. He hadn't known why he was in a hurry – he couldn't do anything to help Jinx now. But still he'd felt an urge he couldn't ignore, to carry out her wish while she was still alive. 

And now a small brown Minion straightened out beside the Well, as water dripped from his limp ears and out of his silken hat. For a brief moment his ears sprung up and he gasped for breath, grinning wider than he'd ever done. He was alive! That could only mean one thing – Sayron would never have resurrected him. Jinx had won. Jinx was the new Overlord! 

But then his eyes met Mortis', on the other side of the Well, and his ears fell down at once.  
>He felt his heart miss a beat, and he almost fell to his knees. "<em>Jinxie…?<em>" 

"Not dead yet," the resurrecter answered. "Not yet. They're at the river." 

Kniff uttered a pained sound and ran. 

He didn't have to run very far. Just a small distance away, where the river raged on in a bend, he met a view of the swelling, silent Minion mass, the Overlord, the river… and Jinx. His Jinx, hanging limply in her half-brother's fist. 

He didn't hear what was said. He wished he hadn't been brought back to life. Everything was better than being forced to witness this. His head spun, there before the river… 

There was nothing he could do. He turned away, to the abyss, and he staggered to it, maybe with the intention to cast himself into it. 

When he looked down, however, orange light wasn't all he could see. 

"Krr?"

Jinx gasped for breath, but she couldn't free her hands to pry Sayron's metal fingers from her throat. She hung close to his face, and his flaming eyes bored into her glowing yellow ones. Her teeth were bared, but she couldn't muster anger any longer. This was a final struggle. 

She was so close to the amber gem. But there was no way to get to it and turn matters around.  
>If this went on for much longer, she wouldn't need the river to die. <p>

_Rivers lead to many places._

"You've provided me with many things, Jinx," Sayron spoke. "But in the end, mainly trouble. Let this be a lesson for the world. I am Vessperion's heir, whoever tries to hinder me, however long-lived and cunning their plans may be, how deceiving… In the end I'm the victor." He brought Jinx even closer to his face for a moment, and narrowed his eyes. "Mortis should never have fished you from the river. But now I'm going to undo his mistake. I'm going to undo you. You never _existed_, Jinx." 

And with those words he cast her into the cold, dark water, beyond Mortis' nets. 

A wordless, but tangible shock coursed through the gathered Minions. 

The current dragged her along immediately. White foam washed over her and pushed her under, choking for breath. Faster and faster it went, past the hordes, watching them flash by with a foggy gaze. This differed in nothing from her first execution in the Empire. 

Then the river turned another bend and the black rock swallowed everything; the Overlord, the Minions, the Barracks, the Netherworld. Black rock was all she could see, and she felt a sting of panic as the ceiling arched down lower and lower. Chunks of rock broke the stream every now and then, but they were all too slippery to hold on to without using her hands, or too small to reach in the raging water. Jinx could barely keep her head above the wild surface. Her arms were bound, and she had no strength left in her legs. Maybe she'd drown even before the void claimed her. 

The void… 

A deep roar drowned out all her thoughts. A fiery light broke the darkness of the tunnel. Amidst the foam Jinx widened her eyes, and she felt her pupils shrink in the light. 

The roar filled her completely as she was dragged to the flaming tunnel mouth, soaked and at the end of her powers. At the end of her life. 

Jinx closed her eyes. "For the Minions," she muttered with faltering breath. 

Then the waterfall dragged her over the edge, into the orange flare. 

She fell, with closed eyes, amongst the nebulising water. She'd fallen and crashed often recently, but it seemed as if every time had been a preparation for this time. For a moment, or an eternity, her heart seemed to stop again, and at that moment she was at peace with it. Dizzying weightlessness claimed her body. 

Then another force tore the fall from its hinges, an iron claw gripped her arm and there was the sound of snapping rope. 

All the pain in her body concentrated around the merciless grip on her arm. But she could move her arms again, and even before her gaze had focused her fingers had found something, something strangely familiar and warm. 

"Don't _dare_ let go." 

The roar of the waterfall distanced itself slightly, and another sound took its place. The regular beating of very familiar wings. 

Jinx' eyes were suddenly open wide. She stared straight down, to her feet, and at the spraying water and the orange glow beyond it. She was hanging in the middle of the void. But she was hanging… 

…in a very familiar claw, that'd pulled her away from the prow balcony once, that'd dragged her onto the wolf's back, that'd saved her from the inferno of Drearius' villa, that'd been there from the beginning and was still here at the end of all things… 

…the claw of the only person in this world who'd always been what he'd seemed to be. 

Kniff was slumped forward in Zephyros' front saddle, clinging on with bared teeth in a savage grimace to prevent himself from going after Jinx. His one claw dug into the saddle's leather, the other into Jinx' flesh, but the horde leader didn't feel any pain now. She could only stare up, as the water dripping out of her hair flushed away her tears. Her fingers closed around Kniff's arm more tightly. 

Zephyros tried his best to hang as still as he could, with beating wings just beyond the waterfall. Some ten meters higher the river roared from the opening in the rock. They were well out of sight of Sayron and the Minions. 

Kniff started pulling her up, gnashing and growling. It took a while, but he didn't give up and eventually she was sitting behind him in the saddle, completely beaten and almost fainting with exhaustion, and with blood dripping down her arm where his claws had wounded her, but with clear eyes and sitting up as straight as she could. 

"Kniff…" Her voice almost broke. "Thank you." 

The Minion turned around with gleaming eyes. "Thank _you_. Alive again." 

Jinx choked out a laugh and threw her arms around him, to hug him to her as tightly as the saddle's buckles allowed. She took some deep breaths. "Gods, what do we do now?" 

"Beat Sayron," the Minion growled. "Snatch gem." 

Jinx cringed. "I lost my magic, Kniff. The Sentinels…" 

A pained expression slid over Kniff's face. Then he turned, to Zephyros' head, and lay his claws on the rough neck and head. Jinx looked on in surprise. "What are you doing?" 

"Don't know," was the shocked answer. "I…" 

Then another voice cut him off, very close to Jinx' ear. "_Rivers lead to many places, Jinx._" A deep, dark chuckle followed. Zephyros put himself in motion, following the commands Kniff's claws gave without Kniff's consent. 

**(BARRACKS)**

Sayron turned away from the river. His former horde leader had been gone for a while – she'd be halfway to the fire by now, and this time there were no wings to lift her. The bat still lay chained in his dungeons. 

Maybe he could still use the beast for something. 

Despite everything, Jinx had left a gaping wound, but he ignored it. He could ignore everything. All that mattered now was the fact he was the Emperor, and he had the upper world at his feet at last. 

He'd leave the Netherworld and make sure Arcadiopolis was rebuilt. 

"_Do you think so, Sayron?_" 

"Yes," he growled back. "You're a Minion god, not my god. I do what I want." 

"_Think again._" 

Sayron strode on towards the floating rock, without answering. The Minions followed him in small groups, in the background, silently. 

But all that changed as he reached the precipice. 

At the moment Lord Sayron neared the edge something rose over it, something with gigantic beating wings. Behind the beast's head sat a single brown Minion, his eyes wide, but filling with wild fury as he looked upon the Overlord. And behind the Minion was Jinx. Impossible to kill or keep down, always rising again, Jinx. 

For a moment Sayron was speechless, but then he emitted a wordless roar. Lightning awoke and crackled in his hands, but even though he was able to cast the bolt with all the Minions suddenly trying to bar his way, Zephyros simply beat his wings sharply, once, and rose up so the light passed below him. 

There were Minions on Sayron's back and hanging from his arms, but the struggling Overlord didn't give up that easily. The amber gem flashed as it started attracting and absorbing life force, and the Minions hanging from him, and then those around him, became limp and fell down. Sayron looked back at Jinx. The Minion Mistress stared at him, with piercing yellow eyes. With a slight movement to the left she dodged another furiously lobbed bolt. 

Then the bat turned, and soared away across the abyss. 

Sayron ran forward and jumped onto the floating rock, ready to pursue her, but the rock didn't move, no matter what its rider commanded. 

The Overlord stayed behind, surrounded by fighting and dying Minions, roaring out his soul in blind rage.

Zephyros flashed away over the void, guided by Kniff – or that which acted through him. They soared past the Tower with their wings spread wide, and Minions reached out to them from the windows – but Jinx could do nothing but look back, her face a mask of pain and grief. "He's going to kill them all, Kniff," she shouted. "You should have let me die!" 

"_There is life beyond death,_" the dark voice answered from the empty air. "_And Evil always finds a way._" 

The other wall of the Netherworld loomed up before them, beyond the whirling rocks around the Tower. Multiple wild, white-foaming rivers writhed over the rough basalt. Zephyros set course for the top of one of those rivers, the point where it emerged from the wall. Jinx stared at it. "And rivers lead to many places?" 

They came closer and closer to the opening, until the darkness inside filled Jinx' entire view. There was no answer from the deep, dark voice. Kniff looked back and raised his hands up from Zephyros' head, released by the power that had guided him. Jinx stared at him for a moment, and then gazed forward again, into the frothing darkness. "Where are we going?" she asked herself, her voice echoing off the rock walls. Foam sprayed up to them, and the bat had to flap frantically to stay in the air. There was barely enough space between the rock and the water. 

They couldn't turn back. The only way was forward. 

Her story had seemed to be at an end, and all her loose ends had been tied up, but suddenly here was a new situation. Something unexpected. She had no idea where they were going. This was bigger than her. 

They shot through the dark, the wild water below them, clawing and spraying up at Zephyros' belly. Beside the roaring waves there was no sound at all in the tunnel. To the fliers the journey seemed to go on forever, and Zephyros started to breathe more heavily after a while. 

Then, like a cork from a bottle, they shot into a larger space. It was almost completely dark, but Jinx and Kniff could make out the walls of a cave, and Zephyros, too, had excellent night vision. The bat soared on for a few moments and then landed on a moist, rocky floor. The river gushed past them, around the rocky island, at a much calmer pace. Faint lines of light danced across the far, high ceiling. 

Jinx knew this place. She knew she'd been here before. 

"Kniff, we're in the Last Sanctuary."

**(NETHERWORLD)**

Sayron had retreated into the private quarters. 

He might have taken everything from Jinx, in passing he'd taken almost everything from himself as well. In his rage he'd damaged the chambers beyond repair, destroying sculptures and smashing mirrors to the left and right, flinging around lightning until the stone walls cracked and crumbled.

Most of the Minions had fled a long time ago, but those who hadn't been fast enough had been drained of their life force and now lay scattered on the floor and in the basin. Dark blood leaked into the water. The amber gem shone with a vicious light. 

He was mighty. That had been his only reason to revive Jinx; he'd wanted her magic, everything he'd given her after killing the Emperor. He couldn't afford to lose that much power. And it was his, all his. He'd sent Jinx on the run, howling, and she'd probably never return, if she was alive at all. He was strong, a victor. 

But then, why was the sight of Kelda in her bed of furs enough to make every trace of satisfaction melt away? 

Blood trickled down his hands from the many cuts he'd acquired breaking the mirrors as he knelt down at her bedside. Suddenly his fury was gone, and it seemed as if he could see clearly again. Kelda. The only one he'd had, once. And whatever he did, she'd stayed with him, even when he took in Juno. 

Fay had been too much for her, but he hadn't even seen that, blinded by his sudden love for the darkened Lady of the Light. Or had it been love at all? He'd loved the radiant queen, yes, but in his urge to possess her he'd broken her, twisted her, destroyed her. The one he'd taken back to the Netherworld hadn't been the one he'd loved. The darkened Fay hadn't loved him, but had simply been bound to him by magic. Just like with the people he'd dominated, that love didn't come from _her_. It could never have worked. 

Juno had never loved him either. She'd followed him in her hunger for power and status, nothing more. It didn't surprise him she'd vanished now. 

"Kelda," he muttered, his head on his bleeding arms, kneeling beside the bed. "I'll stay with you. I don't care you were on Jinx' side. That's over. The battle is over. It's time to look ahead, to a future above ground." 

The Nordbergian Mistress didn't show any response. Her face remained motionless and pale. Briefly the Overlord stroked her short red hair, then he took her in his arms, furs and all, and climbed to his feet. Slowly he walked towards the winding stairs and then descended to throne room level. 

There he outstretched one arm, in the middle of the deserted hall, and departed for Arcadiopolis.

**(LAST SANCTUARY)**

Soft footsteps resounded through another underground hall. 

Jinx, Kniff and Zephyros traveled through the deepest levels of the Last Sanctuary, completely exhausted. They'd passed the gigantic skeleton of the Salamander King, the massive skull separated from the rest of the body, cleaned to the bone by now. The bat had taken them up a couple of times, though openings in the rock, but it would take a while before they'd reach the surface. 

The Sanctuary was lifeless. Fay had left it, and the Empire had killed all remaining elves and creatures of light magic. Without their magic the plants had died off and the lights in the air had faded. All that was left now were dead, brittle stalks and skeletal trees, all the way up the walls to the top of the cave system. 

"Why are we here?" Jinx wondered. "What's left for us? Do we have to reach the surface? Then we're in the Wasteland." 

_There is life in a dead place._

"Life," she muttered. 

_You have more hearts to win._

"Hearts…" Her voice changed, her eyes widened in sudden realization, _understanding_, and Kniff looked up at her. Jinx sunk to her knees, her hands clasped to her mouth. Her breathing quickened.  
>"Kniff… Taegan. In that scroll we found in Atrej's tower on Everlight… it said he'd been presented with a Tower Heart by the Unholy Lord. A poisonous heart. But there were also a fiery and an icy heart." She stared at her friend, with glowing eyes in the darkness of the Sanctuary beneath the Wasteland. "Vergal and Synn. Taegan gave them his own hearts, dragon hearts. Vergal's Heart became Vessperion's, and after Florian broke it we restored it, right here beneath his old Tower, one of three." She placed her hands on the ground and took a deep breath. Her next words were soft, and her voice trembled. "Where do you think the Hearts of Atrej and Synn are now?" <p>

Kniff stared at her, and his jaw dropped. 

"I think I know why we're here." 

"If you… If..." 

Jinx looked back at him, suddenly with a determined, tense smile. "There's always hope. Taegan's name, we will see the Netherworld again." She rose to her feet and looked up at the top of the Sanctuary. "Evil always finds a way."

**General Herbison is sitting in his office enjoying a cup of tea: Ah, the best thing for a broken heart. Jinx, oh Jinx, fair maiden of beauty and magic who hath made the skies brighter and the battle more glorious now upon thy death I do-**

**A soldier rushes in: Sir!**

**Tea is sprayed everywhere as the General jumps: Knock on the door next time! What is it?**

**Soldier: Message from Lord Sayron, sir. Jinx is alive and on the run.**

**General Herbison: YEEEEEEEEEEESSSSSS! Assemble every division, mobilise the cavalry, infantry, launch every ship, co-ordinate with the capital. FIND HER!**

**The soldier salutes and runs out.**

**General: I made the mistake of not following her once. This time the war is on and I am sticking with Jinx to the end! Review readers! To battle!**


	43. Reunited Part 1

**Hello readers and welcome back. Now in case you did not know today is an important day for me. Today is the day that I first published my first piece on fanfiction several years ago. In addition to that this is also my birthday so double celebration!**

**General Maraxus Herbison is still in his office staring glumly at his computer which informs him that this story has long been awaiting an update. The message is from himself.**

**Maraxus: Yes I told myself to update this sooner. Oh Jinx is going to be mad at me…**

**He looks around nervously: She's gotten really scary since that big battle. Anyway, disclaimer time. I do not own any piece of this story except for the segments at the start and end. The original author is, as I have said many times, the wonderful Sunjinjo who can be found on deviantart. I hope you'll forgive me for the delay.**

**Reunited**

_There are many things that seek to bring down an Overlord._

A blue flash in the middle of the Arena signalled to all of Arcadiopolis that the true Emperor had returned. Lord Sayron stepped from the Tower Gate, his Mistress in his arms, and looked around. A wide, incredulous smile broke through on his face.

The people had been waiting for him, all night while he'd been gone, and now it was almost noon they were still here. Quickly raised tents and simple sleeping mats were scattered across the Arena sand. A few people were busy chopping up the Devourer's body and gradually removing the beast.

But now he was back everyone turned to him. For a moment the Arena held its breath. Then the cheering broke loose.

Sayron descended the black stairs and proudly stepped towards his people – his remaining soldiers, people from the slums, the middle class and the nobles. He briefly looked down on some fat senators, but then he was grinning again. He'd handle those like he'd handled Ignavopolis.

It'd be a bit harder to control his domain without Tower Gates. But Solarius had done it as well. He was ten times the ruler Florian had pretended to be, he knew that for a fact.

"Welcome back, my Lord," a black-haired man wrestling through the crowd panted. He was grinning at least as wide as Sayron himself. "I see you've cast aside your helmet."

"Scipio," Sayron recognized the man from the slums, the one who'd led them through the sewers. "Yes, you could say that. Cast aside," he chuckled. "I should cast aside the rest of my armour, as well." He lay down Kelda at his feet and turned his words into actions. A broad circle of people formed around him as the pieces of metal started clattering to the ground one by one. Sayron stretched, freed from his heavy metal encasing, now only clad in a dark leather pair of pants and a sturdy sleeveless gambeson covering him from neck to waist, fitting tightly around his muscular body. The former Overlord rolled with his broad shoulders and looked up at the sky. The last of the dark clouds slowly rolled away over the city, the sick magic long gone. Bright, magnificent sunlight shone down on him.

He took Kelda in his arms again and stepped forward, carelessly leaving his armour in the sand. The crowd respectfully cleared a path. Scipio closely followed his new Emperor.

_Some come from the darkest pits…_

"Where is the Purple Scourge, Lord?"

The question was soft, but Sayron reacted immediately. He abruptly turned to the gaunt man flanking his path. He was clearly from the slums. His sunken eyes were questioning.

Scipio was about to push the man back into the crowd, but Sayron gripped his arm to stop him. "Succumbed to her injuries," he muttered, looking away. Then he walked on. Slowly the Emperor approached his Palace.

…_others from the shiniest cities…_

After he'd lain Kelda to rest in one of the many halls in the intact part of the Palace, Sayron immediately went outside again. He had much to do.

That same day he gathered his remaining soldiers and promoted them to his Imperial Guard. He cleaned up the Devourer's body completely with the aid of his lightning magic, and helped to deal with the flood of slime the beast had left behind. Up to now nobody had dared to touch it, but Sayron knew the mutating magic was gone.

He finally forced the fact upon the Imperials that magic could be trusted. With the nobles, that wasn't too hard, as Florian had apparently made a habit out of handing out his gathered powers in small amounts. Many nobles had already mastered a bit of magic, also the reason the Sentinels never aimed their eyes or lights for their sedan chairs. The nobles barely used their magic – almost only to impress others, and in a few cases, to dispose of slaves in creative ways. Some of them looked as if they could come in useful in a fight, and Sayron made sure their gifts would be fine-tuned and trained. Not that he foresaw trouble in the near future, but he did know one could never be too careful. He might not be an Overlord any longer, but he was still thinking like a conqueror.

For that reason he also ordered a large amount of men to repair the city walls, he deployed the catapults once again and he had the debris in the outer parts of the city removed. It continued like this for a few days. Arcadiopolis grew to resemble the city it'd been more and more every day, but with a bit less slaves, and a bit less monopoly on the food supply towards the nobles.

Sayron spent a lot of time with Rose, when he wasn't busy or keeping watch over Kelda. He couldn't see her as his mother, but she was a good advisor, at least as good as Gnarl had been.

"I'm so proud of you, Sayron," she spoke one evening, as the two of them looked out over the white, gleaming inner city from the Imperial balcony. "I can imagine it was hard, but I'm so glad you didn't follow your father." She looked at him sideways, a few strands of red hair falling over her forehead now she'd taken off her dark Sentinel cloak for good. "I mean, you were practically being forced by a god."

Sayron smiled. "Since I was young, I've known I'd leave the Minions one day. Of course, it was a great adventure, but I did it with one goal, and I've reached it now. I can handle the rest of the world from here."

"The Minions would have been your death. It was a Minion who locked your father in the Fifth Abyss." Rose narrowed her eyes as she looked into the setting sun. "I killed that Minion myself, in the end. But it didn't bring him back."

Sayron's eyes flickered. "Do you think he's proud of me? Or of Jinx? She died for the darkness."

"Of you." Rose looked at him, grey eyes full of affection. "Of course he's proud of you. You're his firstborn…"

"No. Jinx was the eldest."

"…his true heir, not a bastard. You have his eyes, not those of a Minion." Rose smiled tensely. "I'm sure he's proud of you." She looked away briefly. "…Are you certain she's dead?"

"No," Sayron replied. "If I've learned one thing about her, it's that she's very hard to kill. But what can I do? She disappeared into a tunnel leading away from the Netherworld. Probably it led nowhere and she drowned, and even if she made it to the surface, she's powerless and alone. Even with that bat she doesn't stand a chance."

…_while others… are merely biding their time._

_Because Evil always finds a way._

A figure had been flying over the Wasteland with flapping wings for days, higher than the black vultures, sometimes even higher than the clouds. What the figure was looking for would be shining so brightly the clouds could not hide it.

There were three travellers, and they were barely keeping themselves alive. The strange, mutated creatures in the area were edible now – something Jinx had found out at her own risk. The ooze probably reacted to the death of the Devourer and the Emperor, and just like in Arcadiopolis it had no effect now the source had been destroyed. But even then there was barely enough food for them to keep Zephyros going and stay in shape themselves. Jinx and Kniff were emaciated and grim by now, and Zephyros was barely more than a flying bag of bones. With clenched jaws, Jinx kept promising him he could tear Ruau apart when they returned to the Netherworld – even though she knew the bat would always keep obeying her. He had no will of his own.

By now, she'd grown more accustomed to her new body. She'd noticed she could move her ears, and she did so involuntarily as her mood changed. Her claws had been in the way, and she'd often injured herself during the first few days, but now she started to see them as weapons. She'd taken some ropes from the Sanctuary – the Imperial soldiers had used them to lower themselves from the winding stairs, and they were still strong and intact. One of the half-decayed corpses had also been clenching a reasonably useful sword in a mummified hand, so they had an extra weapon next to Kniff's dagger and their claws.

Another thing Jinx had discovered at the top of the Sanctuary was a very small spark of magic – Minion magic. The magic she'd had before she'd found the purple comet, and which the Sentinels apparently couldn't pull out of her as they couldn't pull it out of Minions. She could still heal herself, painfully slowly, and if she tried her best, she could form small sparks with which they could light fires, keeping the beasts of the Wasteland at bay at night. There were creatures who dared to take on even Zephyros.

They'd been scouring the land for the Towers of Synn and Atrej. Jinx knew Atrej's subterranean Tower lay closest to Vessperion's – to _Vergal's_ – so she'd first been searching for an ocean of blue light, the crater lake below which his cave system lay.

She remembered the moment she'd discovered his gate, and promised herself to return one day to open it. That moment was coming ever closer now.

And then, at the end of a dark, blue glowing day at the start of their second week, there it suddenly was; the immense blooming of blue light, shining up at them through the thin black clouds.

It was almost beautiful, the way the lake of blue ooze shone in the Wasteland's halflight. But Jinx still remembered how Jagged had turned into a spiky, dripping monster here. She growled, not taking the effort to conceal her Minion traits.

As they touched down, it wasn't gently. Zephyros was exhausted and starving, and his wings almost immediately dragged through the ooze. Jinx looked back at him one last time, her glowing eyes full of pity and concern. "Wait here. If we find Atrej's Heart in there I'll use the magic to down so much food for you you'll be too fat to fly." At that, Kniff and her hurried to the heart of the lake as fast as they could, to the point Jinx remembered the entrance to the tunnel system to be.

After about half an hour of searching Kniff suddenly sank down into the ooze, and kept sinking. Jinx jumped after him, and together they slid down along the walls, to arrive at the bottom completely covered in ooze and radiating blue light of their own. In any case Jinx wouldn't have to exhaust herself lighting her small, draining flames.

It took a while before they'd found the great cave where Atrej's gate was located, but eventually their weak blue glow cast deep shadows into a huge room, where rough boulders lay scattered across the ground and small bats with blue eyes circled around when the sound of footsteps disturbed them.

There the gate was, hewn into the farthest wall, slowly becoming more clear as Jinx and Kniff walked towards it. The rock was still apparently whole, the edge of the door only visible as a thin line. There was no way to enter.

"How we going to open it?" Kniff asked, glancing upwards at Jinx, his ears half raised in question.

"I don't know," she muttered. She lay a hand against the rough, weathered rock, in which the words of Atrej's final message were just barely readable. Kniff followed her example, with a rough, armoured claw. Jinx stared at her own hand, then her companion's. "Lord," she spoke softly. "You've helped us in the tunnel to the Sanctuary. I know you can't help us directly here, but we really need you now. The last hope for the Netherworld may lie beyond this gate."

For a moment absolutely nothing happened, and Jinx thought she might lose all hope at the thought they might have come to the Wasteland for nothing or the wrong reasons.

Then a whispering wind rolled through the cave, stirring up dust and rubble. The slight hiss seemed to form words – words in a language neither Jinx nor Kniff knew. Maybe elven, maybe dwarven, more than likely centuries old.

And a slight shiver ran through the rock beneath their fingers.

Small bits of rubble ticked down from the walls as Atrej's gate opened for them, slowly, but very surely, with a sonorous rumbling sounds which the two companions felt rather than heard. A light sigh escaped from the room beyond it, and a dead, ancient breath gushed past their faces. Their blue light pierced the darkness ahead.

Jinx was the first to step ahead. Kniff crept after her with slight reluctance, but he soon had to take larger steps to keep up with her.

Their glow fell on deathly still shapes, everywhere around them, completely covering the slightly sloping ground. Long shadows stretched away from them, fading in the dark.

Mushrooms – hundreds of mushrooms, of every size and varying shape. Some towered over them, others squeaked underfoot as they gave way beneath their foot claws. On the far walls the fungus simply grew on, like countless egg-shaped growths on the rock.

The air was musty with stillness and spores, but they could breathe. Perhaps there still was a connection to the upper world – Atrej had to have had ventilation shafts during his subterranean reign.

Ventilation shafts…

If air could enter here, other things probably could as well.

What did the mushrooms live off, exactly?

Something rustled in the dark.

"Kniff," Jinx hissed. "Behind me."

"One man horde always stands next to Master," the Minion objected, briefly looking up at Jinx with a tense smile. He was already prepared for battle by the look of it, his knees slightly bent and his dagger in hand.

Jinx grimaced and stepped forward. The mushrooms squeaked in protest.

And in the fungus forest ahead, pale green shields flapped up, and veined pairs of wings fluttered into action. Dozens of bloated forms with dangling legs rose from the mass of mushrooms ahead.

"Beetles. Should have known…" Jinx drew her sword, and at the sound of the metal all beetles turned to her.

"We have to get ahead," she spoke to Kniff. "We don't have to win, we just have to get further."

"Always deeper," Kniff nodded with a lopsided grin. Then he stormed ahead, and Jinx hurried after him.

More than even the journey though the Wasteland, this battle brought back memories of her first journey through the Nordbergian wilderness, with only Kniff by her side. They hadn't really fought back then, but for the first time since then she was just as dependent on Kniff as during those first few days in the world of the Overlords. They protected each other's backs as they tried to cross the mushroom garden as quickly as possible, looking for a way out, a gateway to the rest of Atrej's domain. The mushrooms were everywhere, however, and blocked the view, better than any plant growth combined with the darkness.

The beetles weren't a direct threat in most cases, as they seemed to defend the room only.

As Jinx fell out upwards and her eyes fell upon the higher walls she saw the structures she'd thought to have been smaller, egg-shaped mushrooms were actually eggs, and in some cases little moving bodies – larvae, feeding on the mushrooms beneath them. Perhaps they'd entered through the ventilation shafts and then developed into a full beetle population…

Then her sword was yanked from her hand. Spiny legs closed around the blade and hilt, her last grasp missed, and the weapon was gone.

Without thinking, she ran after it. Kniff followed quickly, keeping off smaller beetles as they buzzed around his head.

Mushrooms squeaked beneath her feet and rubbery stalks snapped and broke as she pushed away from them. She couldn't afford to lose the weapon. She had no idea what was waiting for them, and there was a good chance they wouldn't make it with just claws and one dagger…

Then the beetle disappeared, together with a whirlwind of its kin, into the ground. Jinx stumbled to a halt.

A hole in the ground. There was nothing visible inside, just darkness. No stairs, nothing.

"Well," Kniff remarked as he reached her. "Is deeper."

Jinx hesitated for a moment, and was then distracted by a huge beetle coming so close the air flow of his wings blew back her hair. Clawed legs scraped across her arm. She struck with her own claws and jolted for a moment as those came back covered in yellowy blood and entrails. "Yes," she nodded. "Let's go." She cast one of her ropes around the thickest mushroom she could make out in the bluish gloom, and lowered herself into the hole. Kniff quickly hooked on to her back.

Together they disappeared into the blackness, as the beetles still buzzed around overhead.

Darkness enveloped them. Dripping, mouldy, claustrophobic darkness.

Their bluish glow had died away slightly as the ooze on their skin and clothes dried up, but now it didn't reach further than the walls of the shaft, and those were barely distanced a meter from their bodies. Neither Jinx nor Kniff could see how far down it went.

Eventually that which Jinx had been fearing happened: she reached the end of her first rope. She stared down, but still couldn't see any bottom. She thought for a moment, then spat down, in the hope of hearing how far down they still had to go, but as she did hear something it was still so far away she didn't even want to think of letting go.

"If I use the other rope too, I'll have no more weapons," she spoke. She looked back at Kniff. "What do I do?"

"These ropes are no weapons," Kniff answered. "Claws are weapons. Maybe we'll find sword back."

"You have a point," Jinx nodded. "You attach the second rope, then."

The Minion climbed down her back, the rope between his teeth. A few seconds later he'd doubled the length of their safety line, and the climbing continued, until they'd reached the end of the second rope as well. There Jinx remained hanging, still not sure how far it was to any kind of solid ground.

"I'm going to let go," she spoke. "Hang on tight. I'll be alright, but I don't want you to break anything." Kniff nodded, and tightened his grip. "Hopefully isn't far…"

Jinx exhaled deeply, and let go of her rope. For a few heart-stopping seconds she plummeted through the dark, and the weak blue ring of light fell with them.

Then, with a thud and a brief cracking sound, she'd reached the bottom. A short cry resounded through the dark, then Jinx had regained control over herself, hissed, and started healing her wrists and lower legs – one knee had been dislodged and a few bones had been fractured, but that was nothing she couldn't handle. Kniff had rolled away from her and now sharply stared into the surrounding dark, ready to defend the both of them.

As she could stand again and joined Kniff, she noticed something else was glowing, not far from their feet. She knelt, to see it was a bluish slime trail, not unlike the ooze on their skin and clothes.

It lead into the dark on both sides, and as they followed it, it became increasingly broad and jolting, as if a fight with the maker of it had occurred. A bit further lay a single beetle shield and a loose, still convulsing leg. Jinx slowed down, and Kniff looked up at her. "Something thought both beetles and sword were food…"

Jinx nodded. "I think we shouldn't linger down here too long, Kniff."

Then their bluish light fell to the glistening, calmly flowing surface of clear water. Bluish flecks of light were taken along by the stream, flowing straight through the tunnel and disappearing into the rock on both sides. Drops fell from the stalactites on the ceiling with regular intervals.

The slime trail led into the stream. But the bottom was visible, and there was no life whatsoever in the clear depth.

Jinx briefly looked back. "Kniff… come on."

The Minion climbed to her shoulders and held on tightly. "Not like last time," he shivered.

"In any case these aren't mermaids," Jinx remarked. "They're considerably more handy on land…" She stepped into the stream. The bottom lay too deep to stand on, so she had to swim almost immediately. Three strokes later she could already hoist herself onto land again, however, and Kniff slid off her back and shook himself dry there. Their glow had slightly brightened because of the ooze in the water.

The drops still fell, regularly splashing down into the water. Besides that, all was silent. Jinx shuddered, and the duo quickly went on.

The weak glow of the water already died away in the dark, suffocating distance as another sound reached them. A weak bubbling. Not much later that was followed by a sound as if a wet sack of laundry smacked onto the rocky shore.

Jinx cast a glance backwards, and widened her eyes as she saw, with great clarity, what hoisted itself onto the shore there.

Snake-like bodies, at least two meters long, that clearly visible because of the glowing dots along their entire length. Eyeless heads with tentacles at the nose end. A slimy dorsal fin…  
>And as one of the creatures reared its head, there it was, on the underside, a terrible vertical maw with teeth, <em>so many teeth.<em>

Now they had a reason to run.

They hadn't even had the chance to get used to their own accelerating heartbeats when they were treated to the next surprise. Long before the eel-like creatures had caught up to them, the tunnel opened up, and their bluish light suddenly glistened on walls completely covered in crystal growth with countless facets. Beneath that crystal growth the girl and the Minion could make out clear sculptures, however. The chambers they now ran through weren't large, and all of them were six-sided, like honeycombs, but even though they'd probably been used to house Minions or food stocks, they'd been magnificently crafted. Even after a thousand years of neglect, Atrej's chambers were grander and more beautiful than Sayron's had ever been.

In some places on the walls were the faint but characteristic drawings Minions eventually applied everywhere, like their trademark graffiti.

Pain pierced Jinx' side as she ran, but the sting of longing for the Netherworld was stronger.

Kniff was the one to see the first winding stairs, and he dragged Jinx down with him, away from the eels still pursuing them. The first of the creatures dropped down into the staircase without further ado, leaving behind glowing slime.

It had to be that slime that gave them the ability to move on land so easily. Jinx swore wildly, sprinting down with three steps at a time.

Deeper in the Tower the rooms became ever more spacious and grand. At a given time they could no longer make out the ceiling in the dark. They came past chunks of rust vaguely resembling the anvils they'd been in Atrej's time, indicating they'd ran through the Darklord's forge, and a collection of remarkably decorated chambers seemed to have been the private quarters – but the Tower seemed strangely empty. Jinx remembered Atrej hadn't truly fallen, but had retired in a certain way. He had to have taken his riches with him. All the multi-coloured crystals that'd covered the domain in his absence gave a beautiful effect, too, however. Jinx mused to herself that, if she could take enough of it, she'd have herself a hoard even before she had a treasury to house it in.

Then a crushing thud interrupted those thoughts. Right before her an enormous boulder had come crashing down, seemingly fallen from the distant ceiling. She backed away, and only realized a few seconds later she had Kniff's arm in a vice grip. As she let go, two other boulders thundered down on the first.

"Weakened stone or booby trap?" Kniff asked feverishly.

"We have to get past it anyway, and if it's a booby trap we're headed in the right direction," Jinx answered, still staring up. A hissing, rattling sound made her look back, however.

The creatures had even more teeth up close.

Jinx' eyes widened. _No ropes, no sword. Unholy Lord, I have no weapons._

But then she cast a panicked glance at Kniff, and she saw how he left his dagger sheathed on his belt. He met her gaze, his eyes wide as well, but he clearly kept his fear at bay. He curved his fingers, and his claws extended slightly. He grinned at her encouragingly.

Jinx looked ahead again. Yes. She did have weapons.

She curved her own fingers, and uneasily felt her claws getting ready for violence. The first and last weapon of the Minions. It was time for her to start using it.

Then the eyeless, slimy creatures reached them, and before she knew it both her claws and her entire front were covered in bluish blood, slime and entrails.

The creatures were not armoured in any way, and it was almost too easy to tear them open from mouth to tail. However, there were so many of them that it wasn't long before Jinx couldn't keep them all away anymore, and her skin was pierced for the first time by the countless teeth on the lip-like extensions of the jawless mouths. No blood trickled down her skin and clothes, however. The creature had attached itself to her, and was _scraping off her flesh._ The pain barely registered yet, but her reaction was lightning-fast. One stroke of her claws later her opponent no longer had a head, and her blood spurted from the opened throat before the mouth became slack and the head, too, fell off her body. Three other eels took the first one's place, however, swarming over one another to attach themselves to the wound.

Jinx jumped back and started climbing the pile of fallen boulders. Kniff followed suit.

The creatures could move quite well on land, but climbing seemed to be hard for them still. They did come higher, but not fast enough. Jinx and Kniff could keep ahead of them as they climbed towards the ceiling, and descended on the other side. For a moment they stood panting, and Jinx healed her gaping wound. She silently thanked Taegan for the fact the ooze had lost its mutating qualities, and stepped on.

One winding stairs lower, both her and Kniff held their breath.

The stairs was one of eight, descending into the widely spaced corners of a huge hall. The eight walls were crumbling, but largely intact, and decorated with geometrical patterns, clearer than in the rest of the Tower. Jinx had never visited the great dwarven halls, but she now felt what that must be like.

Angular pillars supported the ceiling, with gaping holes at regular heights where huge gems had probably been placed. Had those been removed by Atrej himself, or clever thieves steering clear of the booby traps, Jinx did not know.

And there, on the other end of the hall, was the throne – a mighty seat on a stone platform, with a back fanning out into half-eroded formations seemingly grown that way. Had Atrej possessed stone-forming powers? Or had he just been that good at crafting rock?  
>A faint, echoing rattle resounded, but not from behind them.<p>

Jinx and Kniff had been moving towards the center of the hall slowly and respectfully, but they realized only now they were standing at the heart of a carved circle – the only curved form in this angular hall. A ring. A battle ring, covered with dust and rubble, but still clear.  
>Atrej had never seemed bloodthirsty to Jinx, but it seemed he'd had an arena in his throne room.<p>

Something else the second Darklord had constructed were eight tunnels coming out on the heart of his domain. And a bluish glow now shone from seven of them.

Jinx and Kniff immediately ran for the only tunnel that'd remained dark, but were driven back as the eels appeared from the two openings closest to it. There had to be more water down here, all of it swarming with the creatures – and they all hungered for flesh. That was probably rare down here.

Eels streamed from all seven tunnels now, to the center of the hall, and the duo was forced back to the heart of the arena. Opened, drooling mouths were now visible on all sides, every chance of escape barred by teeth.

Two pairs of claws extended. Jinx glanced down at her friend. "Nice knowing you, Kniff."

The Minion had paled. "Are making it," he uttered. Then the first eels launched themselves at him, and he was buried beneath writhing bodies and long threads of slime.

Jinx quickly followed. The eels forced her down, and it took all her strength to push them off – dead or alive. It still wasn't hard to kill the creatures, but there were just too many of them. She hit something whichever way she clawed, but she was struck herself as well; long bodies wrapped themselves around her arms and legs, and jawless teeth rasped over her skin. Large holes fell into her shirt and pants, and not long after blood also followed as the teeth scraped off her flesh and muscle, sometimes to the bone.

Kniff wasn't faring any better. As she heard him scream, muffled by the amount of eels on top of him, something caught fire within her, and with a scream of her own she pushed herself up and threw the eels off her – except for the ones that'd attached themselves to her already. Blood splattered around, both red and blue. Jinx practically waded through the writing sea of bodies and fins, mowing around with her claws to cause as much death as she could.

"I haven't come this far to fall now! I haven't taken on Sayron to be sucked dry by jawless fish! _Kniff!_"

A new shout reached her, and she turned sharply. "Jinxie!" it resounded, even weaker and more muffled than a few moments before.

"I'm coming!" She took a large step, straight through the eel sea – and felt something click beneath her foot.

The next thing she knew she fell back, right between the eels. And then everything was lifted up.

Now the blue blood really sprayed around. The eels writhed more wildly than ever, and an unearthly kind of screech streamed from their bizarre, jawless maws as some slightly slid down again, and the cause of the disturbance came to light.

Across the entire arena, dozens of rusty metal spikes had come up from the floor. Another booby trap – with an activation tile right in the middle of the arena. Atrej had had a sense of humour seemingly not matching up with his reputation of the most calm, most reasonable Darklord.

Jinx' leg was skewered by one of the spikes, but it hadn't injured her much worse than the eels. As the entire floor had been crawling with the fish, they'd been stricken the worst, and she was mostly lying on their smooth, slimy bodies. A little further away Kniff wrestled up, and reached out to her with bloody claws. He even managed to laugh. "Fish on sticks… good idea," he uttered.

"Very funny," Jinx growled. She worked her way towards him, half rolling over the fish, grabbed his hands and dragged him towards her. Together they slowly and painfully moved to the edge of the arena, leaving blood everywhere, but still reaching the point where the spikes stopped and the last live eels writhed around.

"Which tunnel was the right one?" Jinx feverishly asked herself, spinning around to try and make out their destination. She ran into a random direction, caught a glimpse of moving blue light further down the tunnel, and spun around immediately. "Not that one… Ah!"

Welcome darkness greeted her two tunnels further, and she dove into it immediately, healing herself as fast as she could so she wouldn't leave any blood. She hoisted Kniff onto her shoulders to prevent him from leaving a trail, and as the tunnel turned out to be blocked almost all the way up to the ceiling by a rockslide she was as happy as she could be. With all the strength the pure adrenalin gave her she climbed up, let herself slide down on the other side, and collapsed.

It took a while before she could stop panting, but it was only then that she noticed how fast and shallow Kniff's breathing was. She rolled over immediately. "Kniff! Everything alright?"

She tried to look at him in the dying light of the ooze on their skin and clothes, but he was a dark blotch to her. The light just wasn't strong enough. She did feel her hands getting warm and wet, however, and as she touched his cheek his skin was strangely cold.

He smiled weakly, something she could make out because of the way his glowing eyes moved. "Am alright, Jinxie."

"No," Jinx said, slowly shaking her head. "No, you're not. You're injured. You're losing too much blood. Kniff, don't die on me, not now…" She tore the little fabric she could still spare off her tattered pants and tried to staunch his wounds, but the fabric was quickly drenched and the surface of his wounds was far too great. The eels had bitten down on him even worse than on her. He'd been buried completely.

The glowing eyes closed, and fear gripped her heart. She pulled her hands off the wounds on his chest and grabbed his arms. "Kniff! Stay with me!"

"Will be alright," he muttered, strangely slow and dazed. He took a deep breath, and then his breathing was suddenly slower…

"No… Kniff, I can't heal you! I…" She pressed her bloodied fists to her forehead. "Curse those eels, I…" Tears sprang to her eyes. "…we're not going to make it…" She grabbed his clawed hand, and felt his pulse slowly dying away. His skin was cold, and small jolts coursed through his fingers.

"I can't heal others." She swallowed, staring at her friend through her tears. "I can't…"

A sigh escaped Kniff's lips, and suddenly it was silent behind the pile of rocks.

Then a light bloomed, bluish and lively.

At first Jinx didn't even react, but then she jumped to her feet, a growl at the back of her throat. She wouldn't allow the eels to make off with Kniff's body…

Only then did she realize the light moved with her.

She was holding it in her hands. It danced between her fingers. It glimmered and sparkled, and it was so familiar, so _Netherworldly_ it only called more tears to her eyes for a moment.  
>It was healing magic, not pale like when she healed herself, but bright blue like when the blue Minions healed another. Jinx didn't know how quickly to press her hands to Kniff's body.<p>

She looked on wide-eyed as the magic healed her friend, her surprise surmounting even her relief. _How can this be?_ the overpowering question resounded through her head, as her tears slowly dried. _I couldn't do this before. How…?_

But as Kniff slowly opened his eyes again and looked at her, trusting and with a knowing gaze, she knew it herself as well. _The Minion magic was always present inside of me. The purple magic pushed it to the background before it had awoken completely. But here it is…_

"Handy," Kniff muttered, his eyes only half opened, still dazed by blood loss. But he was conscious, alive, and that was enough.

Jinx hoisted him up and hooked his claws around her shoulders. She smiled feeling him tighten his grip. "Come on, we have to go on. We don't know how long we have before they come after us."

"Hope there's no more water here," Kniff remarked sleepily.

"We'll see." Jinx started walking, deeper into the dark tunnel. It didn't take long before her sensitive Minion eyes caught a glow, however, and she prepared for a next struggle – which she'd probably be handling alone.

She wasn't prepared for the sudden beauty that awaited her.

The further she went, the brighter the glow became, and eventually she could see the dozens and dozens of radiant fungi covering the walls and ceiling – further up than she'd thought. They spread blue, green and almost white light, and the Tower was suddenly bright and clear.

There were beetles again here, too, but they didn't seem too interested in the two travellers. Jinx and Kniff could walk beneath them without trouble as they grazed on the fungi above them.

They came through a room where strange growths rose up from the floor, covered in smaller mushrooms, and as Jinx bent them aside she could see they'd once been tables, one with the stone floor. A bit further away were rusty, but clearly refined cages.

What had been held captive here? What strange experiments had Atrej conducted during his reign?

Beyond the room with the cages lay a broad flight of winding stairs, straight down into the rock. Jinx wondered how deep they were – deep enough for magma? Deep enough to almost be in contact with the Netherworld if she touched the floor?

Then, straight ahead, there was the door. An imposing gate, angular and dark, even in the light of the remaining fungi. There were no inscriptions, no decorations, nothing. Just flat, dark stone.

Jinx pressed her hand against it. "Dragon Lord, guide us to your poisonous Heart."

A crack almost shredding their eardrums to pieces coursed through the room.

Slowly the door opened, and with every inch more light flooded out – green light, venomous light, the light Stabbit emanated when he healed himself of the gruesome injuries only he could survive. The light of madness.

Jinx stepped forward, and Kniff let himself slide off her back. Two pairs of yellow eyes were drawn to the light like moths to a flame.

"Well done, Jinx."

The voice was as poisonous as the light, and the hissing tone chased shivers across Jinx' spine. She turned, but she already knew in whose black-lined eyes she'd be looking. It was a shock to hear Stabbit talk like this.

"Lord…"

"Only one other task remains now." The green Minion that wasn't a Minion at all bared all his razorlike teeth in a grin, and outstretched a hand to his own Heart. "Lord Atrej?"

Jinx turned back to the light, shining from that gleaming, changing pearl. Images flew over the smooth surface, and eventually lingered on the form of a man, covered in the armour of an Overlord.

"Even the presence of my Tower Heart had your magical abilities awaken as new," the Darklord spoke. "You'll use it well. Jinx, Minion Mistress, my Heart is yours."

"My Heart is yours," Stabbit echoed from behind her, but as she turned, he was gone.

She looked back at the Heart. Before her eyes the blinding light dimmed to a pale glow, and the pearl slowly sank down until it lay on the ground. And behind it, on the other side of the room, another stone door creaked open.

The room they stepped into was small, and there wasn't much room left once they'd rolled the Tower Heart in. Jinx stared up. There was nothing to see – no mushrooms, no light, nothing. Just darkness and rock.

"How do we get up? Don't we have to go back the way we came?" She shuddered at the thought – the way down had almost been enough to kill Kniff, and now they also had the huge, heavy Heart with them. And how would they bring it up the shaft to the first room with the mushrooms?

Then her eyes fell to a gleaming, dark green tile in the corner of the room. It seemed to be made of a different material than the rest of the floor. She carefully put her foot to it.  
>A shiver coursed through the room. Then the walls started moving.<p>

Jinx thought she was going mad for a moment, and outstretched her hands, her eyes wide, but her fingers soon confirmed what her eyes told her; the walls were rolling down.

…Or…

…the floor was coming up.

Her stomach sank down. Kniff's ears drooped. Both experienced a familiar feeling, a feeling they knew from the countless times they'd been lifted off the ground by Zephyros.

This might have been a ventilation shaft connecting all levels of the Tower, but in any case it was also a way of transport. A fast way of transport. And they were still accelerating.

"I hope this ends well," Jinx shouted over the rumbling. "As far as I can see there's a ceiling there!"

"Unholy Lord wouldn't let us smash," Kniff called out. "I hope," he added.

Jinx pressed her hands to the Heart, and Kniff followed her example. Maybe, with the magical energy they could absorb from it…

The Minion Mistress involuntarily closed her eyes as she felt an intense heat course through her body. Her eyes, and Kniff's, glowed behind their eyelids for a moment. Kniff's remaining wounds healed.

As she opened her eyes the warmth concentrated in the palms of her hands, and she knew that feeling. The feeling of active magic… but it felt so different from the purple comet from the magic room. This was something more raw, more primitive…

The rising floor now catapulted them up, so fast they could barely keep standing, so fast her hair and Kniff's ears were blown down. And the Heart's pale light now shone on a rocky ceiling, straight above them…

"Blood or rock splinters," Jinx growled, almost bending over with strain. Her eyes flashed, narrow but fierce. Her claws curved, and a new light flared.

Rock splinters it was.

At the surface, in the lake of glowing ooze, a large bubble broke through the slime. Then another, and another, and then a huge mass of ooze and rock and fire. Smothering black smoke rose up where the ooze caught fire, the clouds only broken by a pale glow from within. That, and the cheering.

"Magic! Fire! Can you believe this, Kniff?!" Wild laughter resounded from within the billowing clouds of smoke, as a huge pearl splattered down into the ooze a bit further away, followed by two figures who collapsed immediately afterwards. One of them, the laughing one, tried to extinguish her hands by shaking them frantically, but that didn't succeed immediately.

"The Heart clearly had another surprise for me! First the blues, now the reds…" A brief pause. "It's still hot, though. Very hot. How do I put this out?"

Kniff grinned and kept watching how Jinx struggled with her new power for a moment, but then waded to the Heart. Briefly he wondered how they were going to take it with them – Zephyros couldn't simply hold it in his claws.

Then he looked around harder, and caught a glimpse of the giant bat, further away in the ooze, tangled up in a play fight with a huge blue slug. The beast was large, but still small compared to Zephyros. The bat jumped into the air every now and then, to fall down seconds later like a huge, dark brown curtain, leaving deep gashes in the slug's skin. The glowing blue creature didn't seem to be bothered too much – its skin was tough and rubbery. And about spherical where it bulged over the hunched back of the beast.

Kniff smirked. "Jinxie…"

**(CAPITAL)**

Far from there, to the west, in a gleaming city by the sea, a man with shoulder-length pearly white hair stared down into a weakly glowing depth. The light was framed by inky black claws curving up all around him.

Sayron had returned to the Arena, his left hand covered by the last part of his old armour, and his right cramped into a rigid fist. He was fully clothed as the Emperor he was aside from that, in an embroidered, deep blue tunic and a bright red cloak, but he wasn't wearing a crown of laurels or any other kind. He wouldn't stoop to Florian's level, and he was more than glad to be walking around bareheaded to begin with.

He briefly closed his eyes, and then stroked over the jewel in his gauntlet. It lit up, and the glowing depth of the Tower Gate reacted immediately. The connection to the Netherworld became active again – if it was up to the Emperor, for the very last time.

It had only been a few days since he'd left the Netherworld. As he'd left, he'd forgotten about something, however – he hadn't been thinking straight, had been too eager to leave the Minions behind. But there was one positive thing he'd acquired during his travels – his mount. He didn't feel complete without Ruau. He hoped the hornbeast was still alive.

He'd been postponing the return, but now he'd run out of excuses.

He stepped into the Tower Gate, every muscle tense, and let the blue light wash over his body.

As he arrived, it was in a dark, deserted hall, the floor still covered in the dried blood of the last battle. Gone was the warm light of the many lanterns and torches – the only lighting now came from the blue glow of the ceiling portal, and the light of the raw magma outside the Tower. Gone were the glowing eyes of the many Minions who'd always been hanging around in this hall, standing guard, chasing rats, creating sculptures, glad to see him. Gone was Gnarl, a presence so familiar his foot claws had almost left an impression next to the throne.

And gone was the huge sculpture of the three-headed dragon above the throne. The only thing remaining there was a huge crumbling hole, through which the orange light still streamed in. Strangely enough, that only made the hall seem darker. Even the heart of the world seemed dimmed.

Sayron descended below the throne room via the winding stairs, through the storage rooms, the Minion arenas, the weapon stock. The Tower was completely abandoned. Did he really kill that many Minions? Or were they all at the Barracks?

He wouldn't go after them. They'd die out soon enough now the Hives had become sterile and there was no influx of life force to resurrect the fallen ones.

Lower and lower Sayron came, and despite the silence and the deserted darkness he still had the feeling he was being watched. He didn't fear the three-headed Minion god. He had beaten down the Minions themselves, their god couldn't harm him. Still, he felt ill at ease.  
>Eventually he reached the arena where he'd practiced with the hornbeast, and yes; Ruau was still there, in the alcove they'd used as a stable, slightly skinnier than he'd been left, but still healthy. Sayron outstretched his hand to ruffle the beast's rough mane, but then saw the spiky gauntlet, and pulled back. He placed his other hand on the broad back. "Come on, boy. Above ground Imperial grass and a much larger stable await you." He started leading the beast back up, over the broad stairs back to the throne room.<p>

Once upstairs the Emperor looked around once more. No, the Netherworld could do nothing to him anymore. Jinx was gone, the Minions beaten. He could just walk through his old domain and no one lifted a finger to stop him… their age was over. The days of Evil were over.

Evil didn't have a place in this world anymore. In these times, there was no room for warring hordes, ever thirsty for blood.

Sayron nodded, comforted in some way, and turned his gaze upwards to the surface.

A blue bolt of lightning later both he and the hornbeast had gone.

Barely half a minute later a bony, hunched figure appeared above the throne, on the damaged walkways at the huge hole in the Tower wall.

Gnarl's yellow eyes slid across the hall, and he smirked as the Minions started appearing. They'd always had paths in the Tower the Overlord had not been able to see nor tread upon… not Sayron, in any case. Minion paths were for Minions, and Jinx had known of some of them.

The Minion Master looked out over the beaten, damaged, thinned clans. His eyes flared. "Yes, the Hives have dried up, and yes, Mortis has had to give up his hobby. We're fleas without a dog once more." His claws closed around the crumbling balustrade. "But we still have diggers. And we still have someone in the upper world, who's probably trying to stay alive just as stubbornly as during the whole time we've known her." His eyes fell upon a brown close to the trapdoor, a brown with a dwarven lantern helmet pressing his ears down. "Grubby, it's time. Let's search, and let's do a better job than thirteen years ago, shall we?"

**Maraxus reads the latest report: Okay, Sayron has officially resigned as Overlord, the Minions are seeking a new master, or mistress I should say. That just leaves Jinx and her disturbing personal journey…**

**Soldier: We believe Jinx is preparing a retaliatory strike against the Emperor. Orders sir?**

**Maraxus: I want Jinx alive. She is the firstborn and by right shall rule the Netherworld. Prepare a strike team and get me some transport. I'll find Jinx myself. Personally.**

**Soldier salutes and leaves.**

**Maraxus: Okay readers, that'll do for now. Hope you enjoyed and please leave a review for the wonderful writer (Not me) of this story. Till next time.**


	44. Reunited Part 2

**General Maraxus Herbison: I wish you all a Happy Christmas and remind you that I do not own this story, it was created by the wonderful Sunjinjo on deviantart along with her OCs.**

**Jinx: Where have you been hiding this long?**

**Maraxus hugs Jinx: I thought I'd never see you again!**

**Jinx: Release me right now or I will burn the flesh from your bones.**

**Maraxus lets go quickly: Still as lovely as ever. Enjoy readers.**

**Reunited Part 2**

After four days of flight and two days of waiting as they'd found the place, it was finally time. 

The gorge was still just as dark as they remembered. Jinx had descended into it before, Kniff had only seen the abyss in the mist pool, but this was something that wasn't larger in their memory – this was a depth filled with darkness so dense it was almost tangible, like deep, dark, cold water. 

Synn's Tower had carved an enormous canyon in the earth, or perhaps the rock walls had raised themselves around the felled domain, as if to avoid her remaining dark influence. Jinx shivered – she remembered the cold in the voice of the third and last Darklord, and she felt that same cold down in these depths. She'd learned how to control her new flaming magic since Atrej's Tower, but she wouldn't dare to let that light shine here. 

The Tower was no longer the domain of an Overlord. Succubi now ruled this area, the gorge and the surrounding lands. The Tower was their main roost, that much had become clear in the two days they'd rested here and observed the flying demons. They flew out by day, and returned just before midnight. Many of the female demons didn't venture much further than the complicated labyrinth of gorges, but some did, and returned late, always with larger prey. 

On their rocky ridge, hidden behind irregularly rising peaks, Jinx exchanged glances with Kniff. Zephyros hung above them, hopefully hidden well behind his dark wings in the gloom of the gorge, where the moon hadn't even been able to shine if the black clouds had allowed it. This wasn't the darkest place she'd ever been – nothing compared to Taegan's Temple, and now her eyes had adjusted she could see quite well, as the tentacular plants sparsely covering the gorge spread a weak glow – but the depth did seem to amplify the dark, and the effect was sinister. 

The succubi had returned to the Tower, the last of them about half an hour ago. This was their moment. Jinx had preferred to strike when most of them were gone, but even at the zenith of the hunt some few dozens of demons still lingered in the Tower, and then they were awake. She hoped to be more lucky if they were all asleep. As far as she knew, there were no guarding individuals. 

They'd constructed two large saddle bags out of the tough, rubbery skin of the enormous slug Zephyros had been fighting in Atrej's lake, and one of them now contained Atrej's Heart. The glow peeked out just underneath the closing flap. Hopefully it could aid them, in case it would be necessary. 

She fiercely hoped Synn's Heart was still here, and hadn't been stolen long ago. She doubted that, however. She would know it if the pearl wandered around somewhere in the world – and she'd looked into the Tower's location a bit more since she'd last been here. This had been the roost of hundreds of succubi for centuries. Men didn't come here. Once upon a time a king of a lost realm had marched an all-female army to the Tower in search of forgotten treasure, but in some way even those hadn't returned. And now the Wasteland had engulfed it, all allure for heroes and thieves had been lost. 

For normal heroes and thieves, in any case. 

Zephyros spread his wings, let go of the rock wall and turned around in mid-air. He landed on the formation hiding Jinx and Kniff from sight from the Tower, light as a feather, and the duo quickly climbed onto his back. 

As they sailed to the Tower with as few wingbeats as possible Jinx stroked the large, hairy ears before her. She now knew Zephyros wasn't the bat she'd wanted to free from the Arena, but he did have a personality. He had a new personality, as did all victims of Sayron's domination spells – from Morvan, the elf from the Reef, to Fay herself. He was another bat, yes, but there was a spirit present underneath those large ears. A friendly, loyal spirit, and she should consider herself very lucky with that. 

Jinx had grown less bitter since Atrej's Tower. The wounds Sayron had inflicted upon her did heal slowly, and would probably never close completely, but she was starting to feel calmer with every passing day. She still wanted to kill Sayron, of course, but the rage had subsided enough for her to sleep at night again. It could also have something to do with her new fire magic, and with that, the fact they had something to fill their stomachs with – and warm food at that. 

But all that was irrelevant now. Now they soared towards their final goal, a large hole in the side of Synn's Tower – not large enough for Zephyros, but easily accessible to Jinx and Kniff.  
>With a soft scrape of claws the giant bat landed upon the Tower, amidst a carpet of glowing, tentacular plants. The duo let themselves slide off his back. Jinx lay a hand on the tense membrane of his dark wing. "Zeph, stay close. We're stronger with the Heart nearby." <p>

The yellowy brown eye blinked once, and the bat crouched down, as if to signal he'd move with them along the outside of the Tower. 

After one last look at the outside world Jinx let herself slide in. Kniff followed immediately afterwards.

Jinx had expected it to be darker inside, but the opposite was true. The inside of the room they had entered was almost painfully bright to their dark-adapted eyes. Every available surface was covered in multi-coloured, tentacular plants, glowing brighter than ever in the dark Tower. 

Thanks to their light, the duo could grow accustomed to the strange, tilted world they'd entered. 

The ceiling lay to their right, the floor to their left. They'd slid down over an arched wall, gripping a hold of irregularities and indistinct stone protrusions that'd once served a purpose to Synn, her Minions or other servants. 

This room took in the full diameter of the Tower. Jinx suspected it'd once been a storage.  
>An eroded, overturned staircase led to the ceiling of this room, and after some uneasy climbing they'd reached the top. <p>

The chamber that followed was even stranger. This room was smaller, but its purpose was much clearer. Rusty cages on rusty chains dangled down along the wall to their right – the ceiling. Wooden remains were nailed to the floor with steel connections. Along the wall across which they were walking lay more steel objects; spiky things, things with the diameter of wrists, legs and necks. This had been Synn's torture room, and she hadn't been holding back by the look of it. The female Darklord had been the cruellest of the three, and now Jinx saw the stories were true. The torture room was huge, and had taken in a fair portion of the Tower. 

The Minion Mistress realized Synn had never left her Tower. The Darklord wouldn't have left her torture instruments like this; she wouldn't have left her Tower freely at all. She faintly remembered something from an ancient scroll – as Synn had fallen, her Tower had fallen with her. 

The girl and the Minion quickly went on. In the room ahead things were strangely clear and bright; a glow seemed to emanate from the wall above them. As they stepped forward and looked up, they gasped like one. 

The wall above them was veined with light, translucent, radiant crystal, resembling the ice of Nordberg's deep north. The veins snaked across the rock, and met right above their heads, in an eruption of facets. And amidst these facets a figure was embedded, engulfed by the crystal. A figure with short, fanning blond hair, a sharp face with powerful features, pointed ears and shining green eyes, enclosed by a crowned helmet. Her arms were spread slightly, her fingers half curved as if they could fly out at any moment, grasping terrible magic. 

Synn. 

After a while Jinx remembered how to breathe. She kept staring up, however, and after a few more seconds she realized the Darklord's eyes had been replaced by radiant emeralds. The elven Darklord wasn't really looking at them. She wasn't alive. But even with this knowledge Jinx found it hard to convince herself. 

She wondered what had happened. Had a dying Synn dragged herself back to her domain and enclosed herself in icy crystal, and had her Tower fallen after that? Had the Unholy Lord had a part in it? Had her servants prepared her body for her final resting place? 

Would she ever return? 

But the darkness ahead beckoned, with the promise of another light. A blue light, beating like a heart. 

"Let's find the throne room," Jinx heard herself say. "From there we could orientate ourselves, perhaps there's a clue of some sort." 

"Good idea," Kniff spoke. Jinx looked down, away from the hypnotic green eyes. That helped. 

Together they walked on, away from the light, back into the dark, painfully climbing up along an overturned winding stairs to the next floor.

They hadn't even reached the next hall as Jinx suddenly heard a strange buzzing, followed by a stinging pain in her shoulder. In a reflex she smacked her hand to her arm, and she felt she'd caught something. In her other hand, a small flame flickered to life – she still had to think in order to achieve it, but the magic obeyed her better than in the previous days already. She studied her hand in the orange light. 

A small, crushed body, with thin, broken bones, almost spherical and with a head almost larger than the rest of the creature. Large, empty eyes. Thin, weak limbs, and four little wings, bat-like, with black wing fingers and blue membranes. 

Four wings, black and blue. 

That reminded her very distinctly of something. 

More buzzing resounded, further away in the darkness. 

"What is it?" Kniff asked. 

Jinx shook the body off her hand, and wiped her fingers on her tattered pants. "Succubus," she muttered. 

"What? So small?" 

"Even succubi have young," Jinx answered. "I just hadn't expected them to look like that."  
>They walked on, and the light of Jinx' flame seemed to deter the little succubi. Eventually they reached the next room, and it was enormous. It was probably made up of a few stories, but the floors had been taken out, creating a huge, cavernous space. And here, too, something hung from the ceiling which made Jinx and Kniff hold their breath. This was slightly more intimidating than a dead Darklord, however. <p>

The entire ceiling was covered in black and blue wings, larger than those of the young on the stairs. These wings were one to two meters long, and folded around slender bodies. The adult succubi hung upside down like bats, and the image did resemble that of the roost of Zephyros' colony on Everlight – and this colony was probably just as dangerous as a group of wild giant bats. 

Jinx had been staring up as if frozen for some time now, but only now did she see the smaller succubi were doing something strange with the larger demons. 

More little ones buzzed around the adults, and many of them landed on their slender bodies. And that was where it happened. Before Jinx' eyes, the little ones seemed to melt into the larger succubi. Skin connected to skin, and the little ones slowly disappeared, to be reduced to bumps within a few minutes, then a shrinking irregularity, and eventually there was nothing left. The only reaction the larger ones gave was a slight purring sound and some shifting movement on the ceiling. 

"What…" 

"Babies go back into the mother?" Kniff wondered quietly, staring up as well. Jinx smiled briefly – she knew it was already strange to him for babies to come _out_ of a mother. Then she frowned. "This doesn't seem normal behaviour for a baby." Then she suddenly backed away. A small succubus had appeared right in front of her face, buzzing with all four little wings, and her golden eyes lost focus. This was the first time she looked into the eyes of a little one. The one she'd squashed had been dead, and the others had fled from her flame. But this one didn't seem to be afraid. This one bored his wide, dark gaze straight into her eyes, and it had an unexpected effect on her. 

Kniff stared at his companion, but he couldn't guess what she was seeing. As the little creature came even closer to the Minion Mistress, however, her eyes became even glassier, her mouth opened slightly, and a sigh escaped her lips. "Oh…" 

It took a while for Kniff to realize it, but that was mainly because he could not, or didn't want to believe it. This little one had the same effect the larger succubi had on him, the other Minions, and every man venturing too close to this domain. This little one was a male succubus, and the events above their heads were a mating ritual during which the females slept. 

He grabbed Jinx' arm and dragged her back. She resisted, however, and as he pulled her too far from the little creature her gaze flashed down to him, and she uttered a fierce cry. "No! You can't…" 

That was enough. 

With a rushing of dozens upon dozens of wings, the entire ceiling woke up.

It was just like Atrej's Tower. They were forced to run so fast they had no time to look around, and Jinx cursed herself relentlessly now. Kniff's ears lay back flatly, but he kept looking up at her. "What did you see?!" 

"You don't want to know," the Minion Mistress called back. "Run, and don't look at the females!" 

But the females weren't just behind them. The rooms beyond the great open space were full of them too, and it didn't take long for Kniff to keep standing, completely hypnotized. Before the succubi could lift him up like they'd done with Ramul, Gloob and Aches so long ago, however, Jinx had dragged him off the ground and hooked him around her shoulders, and the fact he didn't want this himself changed very little. One did not simply come between Jinx and the one she wanted to protect. Time after time bursts of flame lit the fallen Tower, but that light awoke more and more succubi as well. 

The floors rising up into the shadows behind them sported carved circles, she saw as she looked back feverishly, and the walls she sprinted over were riddled with alcoves and balconies. Arenas? Did Synn create the arena in Atrej's throne room? Had she watched elves and men fight to the death here, or had they been for Minion training? 

Kniff struggled again, staring back, and Jinx growled. Then she tore her bandana off her head and hooked the cloth behind his cheek spikes, so he was effectively blindfolded. A little later he seemed to come to his senses, and didn't resist any longer. 

As if to continue this positive trend, a great hairy head suddenly appeared through a hole in the ceiling, and slavering jaws snapped at the flying succubi. A few of the female demons flew after Zephyros, outside, however, and Jinx thought she could feel the power of Atrej's Heart diminishing, as if the bat was moving away from the Tower… she hoped she was imagining this. 

In the next room the floor fell away below their feet, further than in the previous chambers when they jumped through the stairs to a wall. This hall had been wide, great… 

…this had been the throne room. 

Jinx came to a sliding halt, Kniff still on her back, and turned to defend herself. Only then did she realize she was standing on the overgrown remains of the throne, flipped over so the back lay beneath her feet. Around it lay broken sculptures and rusty chains, perhaps used for keeping up banners… briefly Jinx envisioned the third Darklord's icy blue crest, but then she looked up, and saw banners of another shade of blue entirely. 

Dark blue, broken by black. And these banners were moving. They slowly opened, and fierce eyes opened in the face coming to light – an inhumanly perfect face, crowned by long, elegantly curving horns. 

This succubus's wings were around four meters long, and as she spread them the two intruders felt the air flow on the other side of the throne room. Her seemingly beautiful lips opened to reveal powerful jaws and rows of teeth, and Jinx recoiled before she realized this intimidating gesture was only a yawn. 

From the stairs behind them succubi swarmed inside, males and females. Jinx quickly lowered her gaze – she wouldn't make the mistake of eye contact with the minuscule males again. 

Then the enormous succubus really opened her wings, and dropped down on hands, knees and wing claws, barring Jinx' way to the floor above the throne room. Now her mouth opened even wider, and a terrifying hiss echoed through the entire hall. 

Jinx jolted as she felt Kniff's claws loosening. The Minion dropped himself, tore the bandana off his eyes and stared around. He'd clearly had enough of not knowing what was going on when such sounds rang out around him. Before Jinx could do anything, he'd seen the Queen. 

"Kniff –" she started, but the Minion had already turned, and was now looking at her, with bright eyes in which she could clearly see he wasn't hypnotized. Even as the other females circled around filling the entire hall, he kept looking at her, without fear. There was only resignation in his eyes. 

"Well," he spoke, not a tremble to his voice. "This is it." 

Jinx felt her chest and throat constrict, but she kept the sob inside. She nodded, and managed a sad smile. 

She could feel Atrej's Heart was really beyond her reach now. Zephyros was male. The succubi leaving the Tower had to have gotten him, and lead him far away. He couldn't help them anymore. 

Jinx briefly closed her eyes, and then let the fire in her hands awaken. Flames reminding her of Vessperion's fiery form in the magic room, but she now knew they originated from the red life force which became a part of her before her birth. 

The fire lashed out, around her, in such large jets and curtains of heat she felt her own skin scorch and she was forced to close her eyes to the heat and light. Succubi were stricken, but many others used their huge wings to blow the fire the other way. Slowly they came closer, and finally Jinx sank to her knees on the back of the throne, pressing Kniff to her with one hand and still sending out the torrid of flame with her other, to keep the winged demons away for as long as she could. 

She'd never have been able to keep them all at bay. It was inevitable that one of them eventually clenched her throat, and even as Jinx burned away her wing membranes her place was quickly taken by another, and another. Countless clawed hands lifted her and Kniff and dragged them into the air, but not very high. Only high enough to come to hang in front of the Queen's inhuman face, as long as Jinx' entire torso from elegant forehead to sharp chin. 

The fierce eyes bored into Jinx', and in some way they were as hypnotizing to her as the males' had been. Jinx didn't doubt this succubus was intelligent, even though she could not talk. This was the new mistress of Synn's domain, and the overwhelming feeling was one of honourable loss, to a worthy opponent. They'd come way too far already. It'd been impossible from the start to complete a quest like this without help… without Minions. 

Jinx lowered her gaze, and her chin sank to her chest. 

Then the Queen uttered a strange sound, and Jinx' eyes flew up, to the enormous demoness's elegant throat. There was something which didn't belong there. Something pointy. Something with the colour of yellowy bone, barely visible through the blue blood now coming to light… 

Then a great, resounding crack shattered the sudden silence, like a blow to a breaking gong, and the Succubus Queen's fierce eyes seemed to extinguish; her spirit was visibly fading. And as the demon collapsed, and the stairs leading up were laid bare, a vision came to sight which made Jinx almost faint as well. 

There was a horde behind the Queen. Amber eyes gleamed in the dark, in many-coloured faces, all of them on her, ignoring the succubi as completely as Kniff was still doing. At the front was a brown with a strung bow; Minc had to have been responsible for the arrow in the Queen's throat, her gurgling slowly dying away. Next to him was a larger, more muscular brown, and he lingered a little longer as the rest threw themselves into the throne room, his eyes fixed on Jinx. 

"Giblet," she uttered. "Even you?" 

The forge master smiled. "Even I." He lay his bloodied hammer over his shoulder and stepped over the enormous succubus' cracked skull. 

Jinx incredulously turned around. Minions of all clans had gone into the hall, fighting, flying, hypnotized in the claws of the succubi, winning and losing. An image she hadn't ever expected to see again, least of all here and now. 

Then the widest, most overjoyed grin of her life broke through on her face, her old instincts took over, and she threw herself into the chaos with all her devotion to the fight.  
>"I've never been so happy to see <em>anyone!<em>"

Only a few Minions died during the fight in Synn's throne room. A whole lot was lifted off the ground by the succubi, but many more Minions threw themselves onto the backs of the flying demons, and a slit throat was a slit throat. Whisper led a group of young greens who'd escaped Sayron in their invisibility, the reds burned holes in the blue wing membranes, and even the browns and blues could contribute more than enough from ground level. Giblet unleashed an explosion of withheld violence he hadn't been able to let loose on the anvil – he seemed to be sincerely happy to be able to be in the upper world again. 

At one moment Giblet became hypnotized, despite everything, and one of the succubi lifted him into the air, but very soon the demoness sank down again, her smaller pair of wings full of smouldering holes. A red Minion with elegantly curved horns that wouldn't look too bad on a succubus hung from the wall that was really a floor, eyes full of poison, as the succubus dropped to the ground where the browns finished her off with averted eyes – no less deadly despite their lack of vision on their victim. 

Jinx couldn't climb now, but her fiery magic grew in power as she felt Atrej's Tower Heart coming closer again. The succubi who'd distracted Zephyros had apparently come back.  
>It didn't take very long before the tide started turning. More and more succubi flew outside. The throne room emptied, and after a brief while only males still buzzed around – males leaving as fast as they could, back into the Tower. <p>

Jinx and the Minions wiped the blood off their faces in relief, and went on, to the higher levels of Synn's Tower. And Jinx could just feel every step was taking her closer to the Tower Heart. 

Beyond the throne room was a flight of winding stairs, which had probably been just as endless and exhausting as the one in the Netherworld when this Tower had still been the right way up. But before they'd reached the private quarters where it'd probably had lead, they suddenly were outside again. The Tower top had broken off, and the hordes streamed out, into the gorge. 

Jinx turned around. Swarms of succubi streamed out of the Tower, and higher up in the gorge the air rang with cries and the noise of another fight. 

"Fighting for new Queen," a hissing voice resounded next to her. Jinx looked down, just as Whisper looked up. The new green leader bared his sharp canines in a grin. "We don't have to anymore." 

"Grubby found me," Jinx stated. She looked up as Zephyros landed next to her, slightly ashamed, one of his saddle bags bulging with Atrej's Heart. "He felt the magic of this Tower Heart, didn't he?" 

"Yes, Mistress," another voice resounded. From a little further away, the digger himself came walking to them. He, too, was wearing a wide grin. "Travelling magic, and something else." 

"I'm no Mistress," Jinx chuckled as she let herself be dragged along. "I should be kneeling for you. I'm nothing without you. Grubby, if you hadn't come…" 

A blue glow shone out at her. Jinx looked up, and was greeted by the familiar black spires of a Tower Gate. 

Then she looked harder. 

Between those spires, something was floating in midair, in the middle of the blue stream of light shining up from the Gate, and it spread its own unearthly light. 

"…It was buried, wasn't it," Jinx uttered. "When the Tower fell the top floors were buried. And you dug it up with the Gate." 

Grubby let go of her arm. She stepped forward, as if drawn in by a magnet. Her fingertips met the smooth, cool surface of the Heart of Domination. 

A webbed hand suddenly lay on her outstretched arm. She looked to the side. 

"An Overlord without Minions is no Overlord," Goudvis spoke with a smile hiding his shark teeth. "No ruler would have gotten anywhere without them, and it's only fitting that you, too, needed them here, at the end of things." He looked up at the Heart. "Lady Synn?"  
>Jinx stared deep into the icy blue glow. The face that'd stared at her with dead emerald eyes just before now appeared in the nacre depths, very much alive. The female Darklord actually smiled. "The succubi are fighting for a new Queen, but the Minions indeed won't have to for quite some time. Your battle is over, for now. New tasks await you, Jinx. My Heart is yours."<br>And the blue light swallowed the world. 

**(IMPERIAL CAPITAL)**

In the rosy glow of a new morning Sayron stepped out of bed. 

He mourned the fact he still couldn't share it with his Empress. Kelda still hadn't woken up. She took in liquid sustenance, but the ginger Nordbergian was still losing weight at an alarming rate. Sayron stared down at her for a moment, but then tore himself away and got dressed. Every day he grew more used to his imperial clothing – incredibly loose and comfortable compared to the armour he'd worn almost continuously since he'd been ten years of age. 

After a short breakfast he strode out of the Palace, into the sunlit courtyard, ready for a new day. There was still a lot to be done and repaired in the city. He knew like no other that empires weren't simply changed overnight, and the capital was only the beginning. He'd travel to the surrounding villages soon, and the next steps were Nordberg and Everlight – he'd left people there before he went to battle, and he wanted to make sure they weren't forgetting him. 

He left the courtyard and stepped onto the broad main street, leading straight from the Palace to the remains of the Fountains. He didn't yet know what he wanted to do with those... 

...his view was suddenly blocked by a huge black spike, tearing up out of the ground like a murderous weapon... 

...a blue light washed over him... 

...his metal gauntlet suddenly burned around his hand and wrist... 

...darkness. 

**(NETHERWORLD)**

The next thing he could see was dark, gleaming marble, beneath his gauntleted left, and uncovered right hand. He realized he was back in the Netherworld's throne room, and he'd landed there on his hands and knees. 

He raised his head. 

At first he thought the hole above the throne had closed, but then he saw there was still orange light… it just wasn't as bright as the last time he'd been here. After another heartbeat of staring he realized why. It was blocked off by dark brown, slightly translucent wings. A winged beast hung above the throne upside down, and closed off the hole with new wings. 

He lowered his gaze. The throne was empty. But at the bottom of the flight of steps leading to it, someone stood, still and staring. 

Someone with glowing yellow Minion eyes, pointy Minion ears, and the poor, ragged clothes of an Arcadiopolan street rat. But no street rat would ever be illuminated by the glow of three Tower Hearts. 

Sayron scrambled to his feet. He couldn't comprehend what he was seeing, and couldn't form the words he wanted to. 

"You… how… where did you get those Hearts…" 

"Welcome to the Netherworld, Emperor Sayron." Jinx' voice hadn't changed. Her tone was still clear and familiar, as if everything was still as it had been, as if she still served him, as if nothing had ever gone wrong. But on the paths above the throne, and from behind the pillars at the edges of the hall, the Minions appeared. Yellow eyes formed a ring around the throne room, just like on the day he'd entered here for the first time, when the Netherworld and the hordes had accepted him as their Master. 

Jinx had been there that day. He just hadn't seen it, as Gnarl had banished her to Nordberg behind his back. 

He looked up again. The advisor stood next to the throne, but it was impossible to read anything from his expression. 

"How can you still be alive?" he asked. "How can you be alive after Nordberg, after the shipwreck on Everlight, after the ooze lake in the Wasteland, after the torture in the Arena? You should have frozen to death, drowned, mutated…" 

Jinx smiled slightly. "You've also survived quite a lot of things, Sayron." Shivers suddenly ran over the Emperor's back. It didn't matter what she said in this situation. Everything sounded like a threat now she had the Hearts floating behind her. 

"And now, Emperor… what will it be?" She gestured over her shoulder at the flaming Tower Heart they'd assembled in the Wasteland together. "Destruction…" She looked at the Heart on her other side, glowing with an icy blue light. "…or Domination? Or who knows, maybe even Madness. I would understand if you broke down, Sayron." 

Her lack of fury was the most terrible. He didn't know how she'd survived the waterfall she'd flown into or how she'd found the Hearts, but he did know they'd changed her. She was no longer the girl who'd hacked away at him in blind rage, who'd taken the bait of his pretended weakness so he could pull her life force out of her. She resembled who _he'd_ been. He looked away. 

"I'm not going to kill you, Emperor." 

His head shot up. Not a word came over his lips, however. 

"Destruction, Domination, Madness... there's balance. The Darklords live within me." She laughed, and the Hearts behind her shone a bit brighter for a moment. "I'm not going to start by turning everything upside down immediately. I'll never forgive you for my mother's death, or what you did to the Minions, but I'm no longer the one you hurt back then. I'm new. We will see each other again, half-brother... but for now I only have one problem with you." She outstretched a hand to him. 

Immediately a shock wave emanated from the three Hearts, rolling over Sayron and forcing him back and down on his knees. A next blow smacked his left hand to the floor, and something tinkled to the marble. A dark shade flashed by, and Sayron could barely register it was Giblet. 

The Minion ran to Jinx, and the Minion Mistress outstretched her own arm. Sayron saw only now she was wearing a leather gauntlet, in which a round hole had been left open – a hole only that much more clearly visible in the light of the amber gem hovering over it in Giblet's claw for the briefest moment, and then being secured in place. Jinx moved her arm, and her grin now revealed sharp teeth. 

"I'd rather have you on the throne than another of those Glorious Imperial idiots, brother. But don't you ever dare... well, that doesn't matter any longer. Without the gem you won't be getting into the Netherworld again. You'll only see the Minions again when we have a reason to attack you..." 

"You know I'll fight you," Sayron uttered as he climbed to his feet again. 

"And you know I'll win," Jinx replied. Her eyes flashed. "I don't know if I'm as immortal as the Minions, but if the good die young, I just might live forever. You can't keep Evil down, Sayron. And I _am_ Evil, now." 

Sayron stared at her, the black-haired girl with the amber gem in her gauntlet, before the throne with the lava flows on both sides. The Minions stepped a bit closer towards her.  
>Things <em>had<em> come full circle. And his turn was truly over. He'd gotten what he'd wished for, and he'd paid the price. 

"You'll be a decent Overlord... sister," he spoke. 

"And you'll be a good Emperor. I hope," Jinx added. 

All he could do now was retain his dignity. 

"I'll see you again," the Emperor swore. 

Jinx was grinning fully now, and her set of Minion teeth was bared. "I hope so," she laughed. "I'm looking forward to it!" 

"Good luck hiding your face, Jinx. That was my least favourite part." 

The Minion Mistress laughed again, unconstrained, and the light of the portal gleamed on her skin and the jewel in her gauntlet. Sayron felt her joy flow through him, too, and suddenly the joy he'd felt as they'd vanquished Florian together came back to him with full force. He laughed as well, his deep and booming laugh, and all at once, just like that, the throne room sang with their voices. 

Jinx outstretched an arm. The portal on the ceiling burst to life, and the light snaked towards Sayron. "Go back to your Empire and be a fair Emperor, Sayron. Until the next battle." 

Sayron raised his head, smiling, and let the unholy light wash over him. A moment later he was gone.

Far away in the Imperial Palace two green eyes snapped open. Emaciated and weak, but alive and lively, Kelda sat up. 

Things had changed. Things had to be explained. And she would listen.

And Jinx was alone in the throne room. 

As alone as she could be, together with all the Minions that could fit inside. 

She slowly turned and walked up to the throne, between the floating Hearts, one foot before the other, upwards step after step. With every step she took the Minions buckled her armour onto her body; her leather breastplate, knee protectors, her arm guards. Whisper placed her ropes over her shoulders. And finally, Kniff stretched out, Jinx slightly bent down, and he tied her red bandana around her head. 

"Better than a crowned helmet," she spoke affectionately. "Thank you all." 

As she reached Gnarl, she exchanged glances with him. The advisor sniggered. "This is the new hope for evil? You're a little short…" 

"Shut it, Gnarl," the Minion Mistress grinned. 

"Welcome home, Milady," the grey black Minion chuckled. 

On the other side of the throne, Quaver stepped towards her. "I believe this asks for a poem…" 

Jinx nodded to him, and slowly walked across the raised platform towards the throne.  
>"Kniff the Minion, loyal and strong<br>Stuck by the Mistress he'd loved for so long  
>Now she rules us from the basalt throne… No longer alone…" <p>

Across the entire hall, glowing yellow eyes flashed, as if they were one Minion. 

"No longer a dream, our crownless queen…" 

Jinx turned around, cast a glance at the portal, and looked on as it changed from blue and jolting to red-gold and fiery. 

"She is ours, and we… 

We are yours, Jinx," Quaver ended his verse, a slight tremble to his voice. 

Jinx took her place on the throne. Her own eyes shone brightly, and the same was true of the Hearts. She wiped something off her cheek. "Our age begins now," she spoke.

**Maraxus: Oh, fudge and cheesecake she's the new Overlord, or Overlady, or Queen, or something. Hang on, are she and Sayron still enemies or is there a temporary truce? Ah the questions.**

**Gnarl: Indeed, it was an interesting turn of events. Now one child sits on the Overlord's throne over the Minions while the other rules the human empire.**

**Maraxus: Well I'm siding with Jinx. After everything she's went through to get that power I do not want to be fighting against her.**

**Gnarl: All you humans that read this make sure you leave a kind message for the real author of this story. Until next time.**


	45. Crowning Ceremony

**I do not claim this story, it was created by Sunjinjo on deviantart along with her OCs, enjoy.**

_Our age begins now._

They were back in the Tower.

Not only were they back in the Tower, the Tower was theirs. Hers.

Jinx had been crowned Overlady that morning.

Insofar as someone could be crowned using a red bandana, of course. But in reality she'd been crowned mostly by the amber gem, that magical object, filled to the brim with pure, radiant life force, the one thing that could only belong to an Overlord.

As she'd taken her place on the throne, she'd collapsed immediately after her recognition by Gnarl and the Minions, losing herself in fits of laughter and sobs for a moment, and the hordes had flocked to her to embrace her and pledge their loyalty individually. As Jinx regained control over herself she'd risen up, rigidly upright, and she'd walked straight towards the floating rock.

The Barracks were still a mess. The bodies of the Minions Sayron had killed had been removed, flung over the edge or used as food, but the damage Jinx' predecessor had caused was still clearly visible and not all the blood had been washed off the rough basalt.

But all that didn't matter any longer. Jinx strode straight towards the river, turned to Mortis' Well, and held her fist above it. Light spattered and floated off the jewel in her gauntlet, and the shades of all the dead Minions whose life force Sayron had drawn out came up to meet her. Mortis assisted her, forced into an uncharacteristic hurry by the large amount of souls he was to resurrect, and gradually the basalt platform filled up with Minions, from newborns to veterans. Simmer and Sear flew into each other's arms as the red with the hook-hand grew solid and his glow lit the platform. Drip and Ramul stared at Jinx in bewilderment as she still stood at the Well with an outstretched arm, even as Zap and Kniff explained matters.

The three Tower Hearts were brought to their chamber at the tip of the Tower, as close as possible to their actual owner. They gently spun around one another, the fiery, poisonous and icy pearls described in Atrej's scroll, finally returned from legend.

Gnarl had to adjust to the fact he now served a female Overlord – something which hadn't occurred for almost two centuries. He'd gotten the hang of it quickly, however, and he'd already attempted to share his new plans with Jinx, but if it was up to her, that ship wasn't sailing.

"World domination – I'd love to, Gnarl, but nothing sensible will come out of my mouth today. I need rest."

She really didn't get that rest. Even as the dried blood and the rubble were being moved from the throne room, the Minions started to let out their joy, and the tones of Quaver's harp, flutes and drums rang out so clearly and wonderfully Jinx could do little else but take part in her own celebration. Above the throne Zephyros looked on with brightly gleaming eyes, and whenever he beat his wings everyone was blown back a bit.

The rest of the day flew by in a haze. Eventually, as the sun had long since set in the upper world, Jinx threw back her goblet of rum and hoisted herself up from the throne, which was now covered in all kinds of junk resulting from their chaotic and by now very drunken party. She took Giblet's forging mask off the top of her head and gave it back to him, wiped clean the amber gem and unsteadily climbed to her feet. The noise in the hall subsided slightly, and the Minions looked up.

Jinx raised a hand, and the jewel lit up. The hordes waited.

"I'm going to bed," Jinx announced with great gravity and a great slur.

As a fledgling Overlord, Jinx had decided she was to spend at least one night in the private quarters.

A whole group of Minions ran with her to the prow platform to see how she'd handle the outer route with this much liquor in her system, and under loud cheers Jinx agreed to see how many Minions she could have hanging from her back and legs while she climbed up. Eventually Kniff, Ramul and Minc clung to her back, and Rampus and Aphid to each of her legs. She flung out a rope and tried to hoist herself up, but failed and collapsed on the platform, laughing. Rampus and Aphid let go, the Minions pulled her up, and she stabilized herself. "Right, right. Next attempt." She whirled her rope around for a moment, took a deep breath, hooked on and pulled herself up. She didn't go as fast as normal, and then there was her drunkenness, but she was doing it. The Minions below grew ever smaller and their encouraging calls ever less audible, and a few minutes later she pulled herself and the three others over the balcony of the Tower's top floor.

The Minions let themselves slide off her back, staggered for a moment and then started leaving. Just like Kniff had showed Jinx long ago, they could quickly slide down using the railings of the winding stairs.

"Good climb. Only can no longer bet things with you," Ramul chuckled. "Whole Netherworld is yours."

Jinx laughed, realizing all of it once more. "Pity, really."

Minc briefly lowered his ears. "See you tomorrow, Jinx."

"See you tomorrow, guys. Nordberg tomorrow, okay?" As they nodded and walked away grinning Jinx bent over slightly, and grabbed the last of the three, walking slightly behind them, by the scruff of his neck.

She pulled Kniff towards her. "And where do you think you're going?" she muttered to him with a grin.

The yellow eyes beneath the silken hat flared as his mouth stretched in the same broad smile.

"Not a chance I'm letting you walk away," she smiled, pulling him with her to a point a bit further away, protruding out of the Tower. As they reached the jutting prow balcony, Jinx leaned over the tip, and Kniff climbed onto the balustrade. A moment later he felt a hand around his arm. He looked to the side, and grinned.

"Don't fall," Jinx laughed.

"You'd catch me," the Minion smiled.

Jinx kept looking at him, the alcohol clearly visible in her warm gaze. "Kniff, thank you."

"What for?" He placed his hand on hers on the balustrade, and his ears briefly trembled.

She looked out over the Netherworld, the irregular rock walls, the foaming water and the lava, all of it lit by Taegan's orange glow. "That I'm standing here again. That I'm not only standing here, but that all this is mine. Thank you for saving me, travelling with me, helping me find the Hearts..."

**Maraxus: Well, she certainly knows how to party.**

**Gnarl: She has come a long way since her first arrival in this world.**

**Maraxus: Tell me about it, you tried to have her killed.**

**Gnarl: If she perished back then she didn't deserve to survive.**

**Maraxus: Yeah well now she's your boss… dang that's ironic.**

**Gnarl: Indeed, anyway, leave review readers and we'll see you next time, for the final piece of this story.**

**Maraxus: Wait, what! This story is almost over?!**

**Gnarl: Yes, now hurry up and let's go before this drags out more than needed.**

**Marxus sighs sadly: Bye readers, tune in next time for the conclusion.**


	46. Epilogue

**General Maraxus Herbison and Gnarl are watching events unfold in the pool.**

**Maraxus: I hate endings Gnarl, I'm really going to miss this.**

**Gnarl: I admit I have grown fond of this as well, human. Jinx certainly brought about an incredible journey through this world.**

**Maraxus: Yeah, well then old chap, let's go out with style.**

**Gnarl: This human does not claim this story, it was created by Sunjinjo on deviantart and it was her brilliance that has brought you to this point in the story of the Minion Mistress. Enjoy.**

**Epilogue – The Minion Mistress**

Eight months later, and the world had shifted. 

In the Glorious Empire by the western ocean, an Emperor and an Empress held sway, both of them noble and regal. The ginger Empress had recovered from her long sleep, and after a few days of quarrel and dissonance she'd stood by her partner's side. In the end the Empire, like the Netherworld, was warmer than Nordberg, and there was plenty to hunt in the surrounding forests – that, and despite everything Kelda was overjoyed to have Sayron to herself. The Emperor had learned his lesson. 

_Lord Sayron left us for good  
>Stronger than his father was his mother's blood<br>He'll rule the Empire with Kelda by his side  
>A human life, not dark, not light.<em> 

And now, months later, Kelda's belly started to swell. It seemed as if Sayron had found his place; the place where his family would be able to linger, now that he had one. 

In the end, he hadn't been able to visit Nordberg and Everlight. Only days after his last visit to the Netherworld he'd been present at the battle-training of his soldiers, in the Arena – Jinx' methods of picking warriors had stuck with him – as a new Tower Gate suddenly bored through the sand. People had come out, but not very many. They'd all been terrified, and had informed him of the fact the sacred island and the north now obeyed another. Sayron had drawn the conclusion he was to expand his influence from the Empire itself. He'd controlled the corners of the world in order to get here, and now that he held Arcadiopolis, his other possessions were slowly fading. 

It was only a minor setback to him. The regions he'd join to the Empire would be connected to it by land, not by Tower Gates. He'd already started pushing back the borders of his new domain, further east into the old forest of Evernight, and further south towards the Golden Mountain range. He'd be busy until he met Jinx again…

…and here, on the edge of the world, a colossal tropical forest giant rose up from the surrounding rainforest like a green explosion. A dark brown shred of fur and leather briefly circled the top, and then landed in the very highest branches with a mighty creak and the massive shaking of leaves. Lethal claws gripped a hold on the rough bark. 

Orntal had been transformed, and not just by the healing of the forest. No elves lived here any longer. Almost all elves had gone to battle with Sayron, but Jinx knew they were not with the Emperor now. They'd re-joined their own queen, wherever she might be. Not on the island, in any case. But she'd find Fay eventually… 

Nordberg had been dealt with. Not long after her ascension to the throne Jinx had travelled north, and had come upon the city, held by a few of Sayron's trusted and a lot of Ruborians defending the area in his absence. She'd informed the people of her new position, from atop Zephyros' back on the city wall, and the Ruborians had crossed over to her side almost immediately. They saw her, not Sayron, as their saviour from the Arena. The bat had landed on the central square, and Jinx had offered the remaining people a choice. Those remaining loyal to Sayron, mortal fear in their eyes, she'd split into two groups. The smallest, only a fraction, had been shoved through the Tower Gate to travel to Arcadiopolis. The rest had been dropped outside the city walls, to return to the Empire on foot. 

The people hadn't had the chance to take two steps before they heard the wolves. From the walls, Minions had placed bets on how long each man, woman and child would last. 

Not long after that, the Kiret tribes of the ice and the pine forest had knocked on her door. She'd given the wilderness back to them, on the condition they'd fight for her when it would be necessary. The tribes had rather appreciated that agreement, and her ferocious mount. 

Something similar had happened in Ignavopolis. There, however, everyone had been loyal to Sayron due to his brainwashing, and a red moon had hung over the beach for a whole night. As the sun rose from the sea, that city too was in the hands of Minions and Ruborians. 

Jinx had lost herself completely in something that had almost been an orgy of blood and celebration for a few days, but afterwards she'd quickly gone to work, assisted by Gnarl, plotting her next move. Because most of her loyal people were Ruborian, she'd come to the idea to cleanse Ruboria of the ooze disfiguring the golden landscapes, and within two months she'd arrived in the delta by ship. The abandoned cities had lain open before her, and she'd gladly given them back to their rightful inhabitants – however not before she'd plundered the forgotten treasuries. There she'd found a pendant; an arcanium disc set with an embedded purple gem, surrounded by four more with the colours of the Minion clans. She was wearing it now, as if to remind her of her days as the Purple Scourge. The rest of the loot had been stored in the Tower, for a time when she'd need another kind of persuasion than raw violence. 

Nordberg, Everlight, Ruboria. Her domain was scattered, but it was scattered across half the world. And if she played the game right, she'd be able to march straight towards the Empire via the Golden Mountain range and the forest of Evernight. She was looking forward to the image of the Glorious Empire, lit by the glow of the burning forest… 

There would be many casualties, and that thought made her grin her sharp-fanged grin, there in the top of Orntal's palace tree. Her eyes glowed brightly. She was an Overlady, and a Minion. She'd enslave and murder, pillage and destroy… 

_We live, we serve, we die.  
>But now, we will rule.<em> 

She'd sow fire and death, spread madness, her domain would reach over all horizons. And she would be with the Minions, now and forever. 

In the palace lake from which the roots of her tree drank, countless blues swam. The trees scorched under the claws of the reds, and gleamed with silk where the mounts of the greens nestled and walked. 

And one brown would always be behind her in the saddle. 

Two pairs of golden eyes exchanged glances, the duo grinned as one, and Zephyros spread his wings. _Now we will rule._ The age of the Minions had finally begun, no longer overshadowed by varying Masters, rising and setting like the sun. This was the age of the Minion Mistress, and her claws could just reach out across the centuries…

_And what happened to Fay, queen of the elves?  
>Ultimately she chose for herself<br>She returned to the world, crown of light on her brow  
>Who might tell where she could be now…<em> 

Across the sea, between the Glorious Empire and the Golden Mountain range, in a region not yet claimed by rulers, a region still recovering from the magical plague and the axes that had felled a large part of it, the old forest of Evernight rose up. Dark, filled with blue shadows, but here and there… lighter. 

Deep within the old domain of the elves, of Oberon and his forefathers, a sky-blue light shone. Blue eyes shut tightly, and then widened. 

And the forest was startled by the first shrill cries of a newborn, white-haired baby.

Destruction, madness, domination. Darkness, light, a human life in between. 

The cycle had to go on.

The End

The Minion Mistress  
>29th June 2009 – 30th January 2013<p>

**Legions of troops standing on parade salute in unison as the story draws to an end.**

**Maraxus: Ladies, gentlemen, Minions, elves, and all other creatures not listed, I am saddened at the conclusion of this utterly perfect story. Jinx now rules as the Overlady while Sayron stands as the Emperor. What will the future hold? Will there be peace or war? Death or Life? Domination or Destruction? **

**I trust you have enjoyed this story as much as I have and it has been my honour to publish it on this website for the true author who, as you can see from the dates above, worked on this story for almost four years. Who knows, there may be more tales of the Minion Mistress very soon…**

**A hawk lands on the balcony with a letter.**

**Maraxus reads it and grins: YES! There is a sequel! Shadow's Embrace! The story lives on! Furthermore there is going to be a series of pieces about Jinx's time as Overlady which I will be putting up within the next few days. Till next time readers.**


	47. Thundering Waves

**General Herbison: Yes readers I am here once more to bring you the author's farewell to Jinx, in person. That is right, here, in this very piece of writing you will witness the emotional meeting between Jinx and Sunjinjo (Iris) herself! Speaking personally this goodbye to the Minion Mistress had me all emotional, ah well, I'll let you read on and enjoy for yourselves. Oh and here's a heads up, the spin-off has been approved and the first piece will be published on the 3rd of January entitled "Minion Mistress Oneshots"**

**Thundering Waves**

At the edge of the world raging flames painted a savage portrait against the deep blue, star-strewn sky. At the edge of the world foaming waves rolled in on a silver beach, and the cool wind rustled through the palms. At the edge of the world lay a burnt-out city, but the air was still in motion – vibrating with voices, singing and laughter.

The fire wasn't burning in the city – those ruins were at least a day old. The fire was burning on the beach, and the ones dancing around it weren't human. They were too short to be, their ears too long and pointy, their teeth too sharp and their eyes too fierce. These were Minions.

Ignavopolis by the sea had been taken, the inhabitants slaughtered. This city would be overgrown by the Everlightian jungle, and what would be left afterwards would be used by the Minions and the huge spiders that originally hailed from here. That was the way their Mistress thought things should be, here at the edge of the world, and these days, if Jinx wanted something, it happened.

Not that she'd ever take that for granted. Weeks ago, as she'd ascended to the throne for the first time, she'd sworn to herself that she'd enjoy every victory as if it was her first, or her last. That was the way she wanted to live, to the fullest.

The Minion Mistress wildly danced around the fire with her Minions, Kniff's claw in her one hand, a bottle of rum in her other, singing and laughing along with their raspy voices. The fire reached for the stars with huge lashes and cascades of sparks. Beyond it lay the faintly fluorescent sea, her sea, the edge of the world.

Her yellow eyes lingered on that sea for a moment. Briefly they narrowed – she'd swear she could see someone standing there, silhouetted against the faint glow and the reflections of the stars and the moon...

She let go of Kniff's hand. With a last grin at the Minions she stepped away from the dance around the fire, to the sea.

Someone was standing there. It wasn't her imagination, she knew as she heard the music and the voices die away, someone was standing there. Someone she knew deep inside.

_We left the music behind as the dance carried on  
>As we stole away to the seashore<em>

"Hello, Jinx." The Minion Mistress could make out a faint smile in the weak light, in a face neither tanned nor sunburnt, unusual on tropical, sunny Everlight. However, Jinx knew exactly why the newcomer was so pale, so much paler than she was. She knew exactly what a human girl with blonde hair was doing here. "Iris..."

The smile broadened. "Jinx, I'm so proud of you."

Jinx plunged into the girl's arms, arms so much weaker than her own, neither tanned nor covered in scars, but despite all that they closed around her in a tight embrace.

"I told you we'd win. I told you you'd have everything you wished for."

"Thank you," Jinx muttered. "Thank you for everything." She slowly pulled back, and stared into the writer's eyes. Iris outstretched an inviting hand, and together they walked along the floodline, as the firelight and the Minions' noise faded away further and further, as if they were stepping into a different reality.

"Jinx, you're the best adventure I've ever had. I should be thanking you. I can't imagine a life without the Netherworld, without the Minions, without you."

_We smelt the brine, felt the wind in our hair  
>And with sadness you paused<em>

"…I'm going to miss you so much."

Jinx looked up, into her companion's dark green eyes. Her yellow eyes widened. "No…"

_Suddenly, I knew that you'd have to go  
>Your world was not mine, your eyes told me so<em>

"The story's over. You've won. Good times are waiting for you, Jinx…"

"You can't leave…"

"All things come to an end."

_Yet it was there that I felt the crossroads of time  
>And I wondered why<em>

"It feels… wrong. Why did you come? This isn't goodbye."

Iris' smile died away.

"What do you know? What do you _know_, Iris?"

"Different times are coming. Things you can scarcely imagine. There's more, so much more, more than I can tell you, Jinx, you or anyone else. You must remember I'll always love you, no matter how much it'll hurt." The writer looked pained, and a pleading tone crept into her voice.

Jinx fell silent. The glow of her eyes seemed to diminish, and she looked away, across the sea.

_As we cast our gaze on the tumbling sea  
>A vision came over me<br>Of thundering hooves and beating wings  
>In the clouds above<em>

"It was… magnificent."

"I'm glad you think so," Iris laughed quietly. "I can tell you for certain, it was at least as amazing for me."

Jinx took her hand, and silently looked her in the eye. "I trust you."

Iris didn't answer, but looked back, unblinking. "I won't shame that trust for a good long time." She looked up, at the fire further away in the dunes. "You've got a party waiting for you, Jinx. Enjoy it. Enjoy your new life. Make the most of it – of this world."

"I won't waste the chance you gave me," the Minion Mistress grinned. She stepped away and took a few indecisive steps backwards. She saw Iris turning around, to the sea, her body tense as a bowstring.

_As you turned to go, I heard you call my name  
>You were like a bird in a cage, spreading its wings to fly<em>

"Jinx…" it resounded in the wind. "You were the best adventure I've ever had, and I won't forget you."

_The old ways are lost, you sang as you flew_

"…but a new era is upon us, and everything will change…"

_And I wondered why_

Jinx looked on in confusion, but Iris did not turn back, and the music behind her sounded louder again, inviting, and her Minions were calling out her name.

She turned, away from the water, towards the flames, and ran up through the dunes. Before her eyes the orange light bloomed, bright and familiar as the Netherworld itself.

_The thundering waves are calling me home  
>Home to you<br>The pounding sea is calling me home  
>Home to you<em>


End file.
